Armed Forces Net(Novan Imperium)

Lord Marshall Nathanial Blair sat at his desk attempting to work. He was mulling over various reports regarding fleet deployments and other military matters. Despite his best attempts to concentrate on work his mind continued to drift back to the stories of the glory days of the Remen Empire. Back when their fleets stretched across the galaxy and no one in the sector dared challenge their power. Back when they were warring with the Ashqa or brutally crushing a rebellion. Those were the days, those were the days indeed.

But ironically enough, those days were over. The heavy iron-fisted tactics of the Emperors were gone. Now the Imperium was in place and it was little better than the old regime. He had to admit though, it did have its perks. The leadership was now chosen from those capable of leading not from some arbitrary bloodline. The civilian leadership now had a better understand of the workings of the military and now citizens get what they work for.

There were so many clashing ideals but somehow they made it all work. And to take, he had to give them credit. Sure there were dissidents, but that was always the case, at least now they had earned their right to be disgruntled. Military service was far from a walk in the park, but it often taught valuable life lessons that one couldn’t learn by living a life of servitude. That was the one thing that he was most thankful for, the opportunity to be more than just an indentured servant to rich aristocrat. His own origins weren’t that spectacular and had things not changed that would most likely be his life at the moment

Blair was the son of a farmer on Calinc II a small world off in the corner of the Nova System. When he was old enough he registered for Imperial Service. During the rebellion he proved himself to be a worthy commander of his local defense group. He steadily rose through the ranks to be a Sky Marshall of the Nova Sector Defense Forces. With his position at fleet command he was often around most of the higher ranking officers. His tales and exploits eventually reached the ears of the last Lord Marshall named Morris Kagen. His natural charm won him a friendship with the Lord Marshall. After helping defeat a group of defectors from Fleet Command Lord Marshall Kagen put him in the running to succeed him as Lord Marshall.

With his rather impressive military record and popular support from several military governors, Blair found himself appointed to the position. He promised Kagen that he would secure the internal unrest within the Imperium before taking the Fleet out on any adventures. By Blair’s estimations he had mostly accomplished that mission.

With the expansion of the Boarderlands and growing influence of The Church, Blair had a relatively effect means of controlling the masses. He hadn’t had any major problems outside of pirate attacks. But that was with any major power that relied on trade. The expansion of the System Patrol Squadrons would hopefully control that problem. Blair sat there thinking for a few more minutes, yes things were most definitely under control at the moment, the time of isolation was over, it was time to rejoin the galactic community.

Blair pressed the comm. unit on his desk and a holographic representation of his chief aid appeared. She bowed her head and smiled, “Yes Lord Marshall, what can I do for you?”

“Merresa I need you to schedule a meeting with the Command Council and the Deliverers of Faith at their earliest convenience. I want to make an announcement regarding the new direction I intend to take the Imperium in. Also get me the Ambassador on Victory Station. He will soon find himself very busy” said the Lord Marshall as he chuckled and leaned back in his chair.

“Very well sir, it shall be done” was the courteous reply from the aid as the image flickered and disappeared.

Blair sat there for a few minutes thinking of all the possibilities that awaited. “Yes things are about to change for the better, it was time to stop hiding within our own boarders and start venturing out into the forgotten realms.”

Captain Rodimus Bryme sat in his ready room onboard the Divine Wind. Bryme was relatively pleased with his command. For an up and coming officer in the Imperium getting command of a frigate after 10 years of service was rather good. Most Captains of his status would have been regulated to a corvette as their first command. However, Bryme had distinguished himself at the Battle of Tartar III in a duel with some pirates. Successfully holding off a force 3x the size of his after his commander was killed won him a promotion to Captain.

Bryme loved the promotion system of the Imperium. Skill and accomplishment were rewarded quickly. Favoritism of command by on family status had been a practice long disregarded in the new order. This was good because Bryme was a relative nobody within the Imperium. Aside from his crew and his Sky Commander he was a bit of an outcast. Not that it mattered, as an Ashqa, he wasn’t heavily social anyway and preferred his isolated command which gave him plenty of time to contemplate his side projects.

One such side project was enhancing ECM output to make larger ships stealthier. The larger energy output of most capital ship vessels proved hard to mask with current ECM generators. The only real effective way to mask the fleets was to employ masses of smaller ships, or stripping out most of the larger components and replacing them with additional generators. Neither of which was practical or effective. But Bryme was determined to figure out a way to do it. Yes despite his impressive combat record, Bryme was more scientist than warrior. Like many Ashqa he preferred it that way.

As Bryme tinkered away at his workstation, the bridge paged him. He tapped the console and a holographic image of his first officer appeared over his console.

“Yes Myra what is it?”

“Captain, we are picking up a distress signal from a survey ship in the next sector. Said they were under attack by pirates and are requesting assistance.”

Bryme shook his head. “That’s a bit out of our jurisdiction…. But what the hell, we could use some action. Set the ship to battle conditions and plot an intercept course. Jump when ready I’ll be there shortly.”

“Aye” replied his XO as the image faded. Soon the alert to battle stations was issued and the crew began to hurriedly assume their positions. Captain Bryme appeared on the bridge just as the ship was preparing to jump.

Commander Myra reported as the Captain reached the bridge. “Sir, ship is ready to jump and all sections report ready for combat.

Bryme shook his head as he sat down in his command chair. “Very well, lets get to work then. Ensign hit it!”

The helmsman nodded in reply and tapped his controls and the ship rocketed into the stars.

Several hours later the Divine wind exited hyperspace in sector 2026.

Bryme: Commander Myra set scan range to maximum and ECM to full. See if we can’t find that survey ship or at least what’s left of it…”

Myra dropped her eyes as she tapped away at her console. She hated the captain’s semi dark view on reality. But hell it kept them alive so far.

She shook her head again as she focused on her task and reported her findings to the captain, “Sir, looks like we have one contact off the starboard bow. It doesn’t appear to be moving or have any life signs, I think its our survey ship that we have come looking for.”

“Any sign of our pirate friends?”

“No sir, looks like they have fled the area.”

“Good lay in an intercept course, ready weapons just incase they are hiding.”

“Aye sir” replied the Commander as the ship pulled along side of the survey ship. It had been shot to pieces with several sections openly exposed to space. The crew could barely see several inside the ship, but the interior was wrecked. There appeared to be several bodies floating through the corridors where the emergency shielding had held.

“Sir, scans show extensive damage to the survey ship. These are capital grade weapons, this far exceed what pirates, at least operating in this sector should have” reported Myra slightly concerned.

“Well you know that pirates are crafty and could easily acquire advanced weapons from a nearby neighbor. But you’re right, that damage looks like it was done by something far bigger than a pirate ship. Plus they usually don’t kill everyone onboard either…”

“Yes sir. I’ll see if we can’t access their data core to see if we can figure out what happen. I’m going to try to link in Amy and see what happens.”

After a few minutes of processing, Amy, the ship’s AI managed to dig through what was left of the ships log to find the final entry. She displayed it on main view.

On the screen was an elderly man who was badly injured. Most of the ship was on fire and there was what appeared to be weapons fire in the background. The audio quality of the message wasn’t great but the crew did manage to make out this much. “This is Captain………of………….came under attack by……………slaughtered crew……after data on KL-GVH-11c. Not sure why………..” at this point the bulkhead leading to the bridge exploded. The visual cut out by the audio left clearly audible screams and horror as the message ended. Amy ended the message and returned the lighting to normal.

Bryme just sat there and observed the looks on the faces of his crew. For many, this was the first time they had seen a message this graphic. But for him it was something he had seen before, even if he didn’t get used to it. Seeing the need to get his crew out of their state of shock, Bryme began barking out orders.

“Amy shift through the data and see if you can find anything else out about the attack. Myra get me fleet on the horn, I want to talk to the Sky Marshall on Zanzibar. Lt Raine, have security teams issue weapons. If these guys come back I want to be ready.”

The crew acknowledged their various commands and got back to work. Bryme left the bridge and went to his ready room to talk to fleet command. He wanted to know what they wanted to do in this situation. If there is a hostile unknown race on the frontier of the Imperium, command needed to know about it.

Captain Bryme slumped back in chair. This wasn’t exactly what he expected when he woke up this morning. As much as he hated the boredom of frontier patrols at least he knew that the worst thing he would run into was pirates. Now there was this unknown force with capital grade weapons which would almost certainly make for increased job hazard not to mention more incident reports. Oh well, hopefully he could kick this up to fleet and they could get an assault destroyer or something bigger to come investigate so he could go back to his tinkering.

Captain Bryme tapped his console, “Amy, open a channel to Zanzibar Sector.”

Bryme stood and snapped a salute as the hologram of the Sky Commander materialized in front of him.

“Commander Copper, I have an incident that needs to be reported regarding a rescue mission to Sector 2321".

Commander Copper shook his head and motioned for the Captain to sit down. “Go ahead Captain.”

“Sir, it would appear as if the Survey Ship Flix was destroyed on their way back to Valhalla. The weapon signature doesn’t match anything on record. Judging by the damage and that fact that there weren’t any survivors, I find it hard to believe that this was done by pirates.”

Coppers face slowly went from one of disinterest to general concern. “So you think that another unknown force is operating in the area. Do you think that they are a threat to the Imperium?”

“I don’t know sir. They appeared to be after the information regarding a planet labeled KL-GVH-11c. That was the only thing that we could find in the ships database and it was mentioned on the last ship’s log. My guess is that whatever is on 11c must be pretty important at least to them for them to go ahead and slaughter a survey ship. I’m having Amy transmit the data to you immediately.”

Bryme pushed a few buttons and transmitted the ship’s log and the data on 11c to Fleet Command on Zanzibar.

Copper nodded as he finished receiving the file packet. “Very well, we shall investigate this and cross reference with other intelligence sources.” Copper stopped to fiddle with his console on his end and after a few minutes of searching Copper turned back to the projector. “Captain it would appear that we don’t have any ships available to continue the search at this time. I am hereby ordering your crew to investigate the planet. Proceed there and report back your findings. We will send additional ships once they become available.

Bryme quickly stood and snapped a salute back and replied in his most patriotic voice, “AYE SIR FOR THE IMPERIUM!”

Copper saluted and ended the transmission. Bryme just dropped back into his chair and sighed heavily. His crew wasn’t going to like this, but on the bright side, at least it gave them the opportunity to stretch their legs a bit, even if it was on a radioactive hell hole. Oh well, it was time to issue the wonderful news.

“Amy open a ship wide channel.”

“Channel open”

“All hands this is the Captain. We will soon be heading on a mission assigned by Sky Commander Copper. We will be investigating the planet mentioned in the last log of the Flix. All hands should prepare for ELRP. All senior officers report to my ready room at 0900 for a mission briefing. That is all.”

“Yes Amy that would be wonderful. Also give me a count on how many functional EV suits we have an the power requirements to shield the ship from the planets radiation.”
“Aye Captain”

Amy then disengaged her image and Bryme went about the planning process for his mission to 11c.

Short and Brief

NSS Divine Wind
Sector 2321
0900 July 1st, 2252

Captain Bryme had spent the last few hours going over the data presented to him by Amy. From the looks of things he couldn’t find anything of any real worth on the planet. But he knew that looks could be deceiving and further investigation was required. Especially if fleets fears turned out to be tangible or some other sort of hidden benefit lay beneath the planets surface, either way fleet had tasked him with finding out.

Bryme looked up when he heard the knock on his door. “Enter” he shouted as he sat back in his chair.

The door slide open and Commander Myra(XO), Lt. Raine(Tactical/Security), Lt. Commander Dr. Satire(Medical) and Lt. Commander Snider(Engineering) all entered the small ready room. They each saluted and in turn took there seat and accessed their consoles. Bryme wasn’t one for small talk when dealing with mission details and his crew was well accustomed to his orderly and short briefings. To that end he wasted no time in getting into the details.

“Alright people just incase you don’t know why were here, Fleet is sending us on a mission deep on the frontier. Based on what we found on the Flix we can assume that there is some sort of high value facility on that planet. Something that someone or something is willing to kill over. This naturally makes it something that Fleet wants to check out. Unfortunately we are the only ones available to do so thus why we got picked for this mission.” Bryme stopped for a minute to observe the reactions from his officers. All and all they seemed pretty okay with the idea. Not that they would complain either way but still.

Bryme shook his head and continued with the briefing. “Alright Amy has mapped the planet for us. The planet is roundly 80% irradiated. Small pockets of planet and wildlife exist. Most of it is in the ocean where roughly 50% of life is available. We don’t know what exist underground but it’s a pretty good chance evolution kicked in and anything that survived is probably down there. And unfortunately for us, that is where we are going. So Lt. Raine, I want whoever you send down with us to be prepared.”

Raine nodded his head. He was the strong silent type and didn’t say much but Bryme knew that he could be counted on in a pinch. Not to mention his security teams were, in his estimation, the best at close end combat in the fleet. But he was slightly biased toward the competency of his own people.

Bryme waved his hand across the holographic display in front of him and turned to Dr. Satire. “Dr. these are the radiation levels of the planet. I need you to break out the anti-radiation meds. Synthesize new ones if you need to, but I want the whole crew to have a 2 months supply of anti-rad packs. What do you think we will need to protect ourselves on the planet?”

Satire stopped and looked over the data. After a couple minutes of deliberation she replied, “It looks like we should be ok with hard suits. If Lt. Commander Snider can keep the shields operating at 75% it should keep most of the hot stuff and we should be able to operate on the planets surface.”

Snider nodded his head. “It can be done Captain. I’ll just have to make sure I modulate them to keep the gamma ray particles out. Its one the same wavelength as weapons fire so it shouldn’t take but a few minutes to do. I’ve also fixed the ATAVs. So you should be able to move around rapidly.”

Bryme nodded, “Alright then, well let’s set a course and get to it.”

The crew saluted and went about the make the preparations for planet fall. They had a nice long cruise ahead of them but Bryme was confident that they would be ready by the time they arrived on station.

Captain Bryme sat in his command chair on the bridge of the Divine Wind. He and the bridge crew were looking at 11c on the main viewer. They had been conducting their own scans over the planet trying to find something of interest. It wasn’t much to look at. It was a dark red desert planet. Dr. Satire chalked it up to the minimal signs of vegetation. Even the patches of trees were a dreary orange color and the few pockets of oceans and lakes were often heavily polluted. The air was barely breathable and radiation spikes were rampant. It was a fucking paradise.

Myra turned to him and jokingly asked, “So why are we here again? This place looks like Praxis III after the war.”

Bryme turned to her and shook his head. She was right; this place was a dump On the other hand if the analogy was true, then this place also held some valuable secrets. There were probably some underground military facilities that they could setup camp in. The heavy radiation of this place made it in an ideal covert operations base for dealing with dissidents. Oh the possibilities he thought.

Shaking off his plans to renovate the place into his underground fallout shelter Bryme swiveled around in his chair to face the view screen again, “Amy report”

“Captain, I think I’ve found of suitable landing spot. Cross referencing our scans with the ones conducted by the Flix I’ve found a spot that is large enough to land the ship. It is roughly 4KM from the entrance of the main tunnel complex. I couldn’t find anywhere closer that was big enough but not heavily radiated. There are a few smaller fields that could support landing craft but we don’t have any.”

Bryme sighed, “Very well, prep the ground teams, and have them meet in the launch bay once we land.”

“Ah sir, planning on giving them a briefing before we head out?” asked Myra from her station.

Bryme looked at her with a perplexed look, “No I intend on going with them. I need to stretch my legs anyway. Besides, I’ve been dying to go off road with one of the new ATAVs.”

Myra paused for a minute, attempting to hold in a laugh. “Oh yes, of course sir. Makes perfect sense, I’ll have that passed on to Lt. Nekot.”

Bryme nodded and headed out the door toward the landing bay. A few minutes later he arrived. His team was checking their gear in preparation for disembarkation. Lt. Nekot, commander of the marine detachment aboard the Divine Wing was giving his security team a once over. Lt. Commander Snider was also calibrating his sensors to cut out the planetary radiation to get better readings.

Nekot was the first to see the captain enter the hanger deck and screamed out, “CAPTAIN ON DECK!” Instantly everyone in the cargo bay snapped to attention. Bryme was never a big fan of the rigid military hierarchy but did like feeling important. Vanity wasn’t a characteristic that was looked for in a commander at least in his opinion but he also had a hard time controlling his ego.

“AS YOU WERE!” shouted Bryme as he walked toward Lt. Nekot and Lt. Commander Snider. Both men snapped a salute to the captain as he stopped in front of him.

“Lt. Nekot, report”

“Sir, my security teams are ready. I plus 5 marines will accompany the science team down to the surface. The three ATAVs are ready to go and my guys have been briefed on the environment.”

Bryme nodded, “Snider is your team ready?”

“Yes sir, I have hand picked 7 of my best people to go with us.”
“Well then, let’s get on with it. Prepare to depart.”

“AYE SIR!” was the quick reply from the officers as the Captain turned to get in his EV suit.

A few minute later the bridge radioed in, “Captain, this is Myra, we are preparing to set down now. We have deployed monitoring probes in orbit to give us a heads up in case we have visitors. Is your team ready to go?”

Bryme replied with a silly grin from the driver’s seat of the ATAV. “Yes, we are ready. Open the damn door.”

Myra rolled her eyes, “Aye sir, opening cargo bay door”

Bryme revved the engine of the ATAV like a kid with his first car, impatiently waiting for the landing ramp to drop. After what seemed like an eternity to him, the landing ramp fully deployed and the three vehicles rocked out of the landing bay. The hit the open surface and began to speed toward their objective in lose formation. Since the planet was dead anyway there wasn’t much danger of running into anyone or anything so the troops decided to have some fun.

Lt. Nekot’s pulled his ATAV up along side the Captain and tapped his comm. unit, “Hey Captain, race you to the tunnel. Loser buys the drinks when we get back to the ship.”

“You’re on Lt.!” responded the Captain as he accelerated faster in front of Nekot.

Lt. Commander Snider, feeling left out of the challenge also gunned his ATAV. The three vehicles bolted across the open landscape with their passengers screaming and yelling in joy.

Back on board the Divine Wind Commander Myra and the rest of the bridge crew could only chuckle and be slightly jealous of all the fun that the Captain and his away team were having. They watched them on the monitor as they got closer and closer to their objective.

After darting across the open desert at their high rate of speed, the Captain and company reached the tunnel faster than expected. The Captain could tell upon observation that this was obviously the entrance to some sort of military installation. Maybe it was a missile silo or some sort of hardened facility.

He also knew that it was time to get serious since they weren’t sure what sort of defenses the base had still operational. So he ordered his men to turn on their lights and night vision equipment they entered the darkened tunnel cautiously. Lt. Nekot and his men were especially one edge manning the railguns on the back of the vehicles. Slowly the crew drove into the main tunnel complex. Their sensors weren’t picking up anything and most of the checkpoints were wrecked. After proceeding down the tunnel for what seemed like an eternity, they found what they thought to be the entrance to the complex.

Bryme ordered the science team to dismount and Nekot ordered his men to move the vehicles around to assume a defensive position. This was a precaution just in case something came at them from opposite side of the tunnel. Just because their sensors weren’t picking anything up, doesn’t mean that there wasn’t something down there.

Lt. Commander Snider was the first to approach the door and what looked like the door terminal. After a few minutes of tinkering he found the interface port and was able to link in with it. Unfortunately he didn’t like what he saw and had the misfortune to report it to the Captain.

“Captain, I’ve got good news and bad news. Which one do you want first?”

Bryme rolled his eyes inside his helmet, “Give me the bad news….”

“Well the bad news is, I can’t read this crap. It’ completely unlike anything I’ve ever seen. From what I can tell the whole system is locked because of some sort of defense protocol. I did find a picture of the place and it is really rather huge.”

Bryme sighed, “Alright well what’s the good news?”

Snider paused before answering, “Well the good news is there is power to the facility still and I think I can crack the code and probably translate some of the systems. I can link with Amy and we could start deciphering it. But it could take a while….”

Bryme groaned while Nekot pushed forward and observed the door. With his brash sensibility he quickly spoke out, “why don’t we just blast our way in!”

Snider and the rest of the science team just shook their heads. Snider sarcastically replied, “Yeah that’s a brilliant idea. Let’s just start shelling away at the door rating to withstand a direct nuclear strike. Hey if we’re lucky maybe we can put a dent in it and it won’t completely collapse the tunnel or trigger any automated defenses which may still be active….”

The Remen just snarled at the Ashqa, the Captain stepped in between the two and the discussion was over. They both turned and went back to what they were doing without saying a word. Bryme pushed his comm. unit again and signaled the Divine Wind,“Myra, looks like we are going to be here for a while, message fleet and let them know our disposition.”

“Aye Captain, wait one” was the short reply from his XO.

After a few minutes of silence Myra reported back, “Done Captain, they say that they will dispatch a task force to help us search the place at their earliest convenience. Until then we are to continue on mission until reinforced.”

“Roger that Myra. I’m on my way back to the ship. I’ll be leaving Lt. Commander Snider in charge of the operation for now. Keep an eye on them and send some teams out to get a sensor net in this tunnel.

“Aye Captain, consider it done.”

“Roger that, Bryme out!”

Knock Knock

Away Team
KL-GVH-11c, Sector 2121
October 13th, 2252

Lt. Commander Snider and his teams had spent the last two months painstakingly translating the alien language. They had made huge progress and were on the verge of at least understanding the security and layout systems enough to begin hacking their way through. Thanks to the AI Amy, the process went a lot faster than it would have if they were trying to do this with datapads alone. Still it was a long process. Snider looked up from his datapad when he heard the low roar of the ATAV approaching them. Snider’s HUD revealed that it was the Captain and Lt. Nekot coming back from the ship. Snider and his team stood up and snapped a salute as the Captain exited the vehicle.

“Snider, give me some good news!” was the first thing the Captain said as he made their way to the camp.

Under his helmet, Snider made a half grimace. They had made progress and were probably ready to try and open the door. But he didn’t exactly know what was on the other side and the reinforcements still hadn’t arrived yet. None the less he was curious as to what was on the other side of the door and was pretty sure that Lt. Nekot would blast it open if he didn’t do something soon.

Snider shook his head and replied enthusiastically, “Yes sir, we are about to try a security override program that I wrote. It should access the door controls and open it up. Hopefully on the other side we can find more intact terminals and maybe a central core. Once I get into that we should be able to rapidly catch on to their language and maybe find out about these guys.”

“Finally something good to report, well Commander, get this door open!” shouted Bryme rather impatiently.

“Aye sir” was Sniders quick reply as he went to work on the console. He pressed a few buttons and the alien terminal began to light up and make some beeping noises. The crew anxiously waited as the panel turned green and the massive door began to swing open. Lt. Nekot and his men trained their weapons down the corridor bracing for the unexpected. After what seemed like an eternity, the door finally swung open to reveal a sloping tunnel shaft that lead directly underground.

At the top of the tunnel was a two very large lifts. Obviously this complex was big enough to support vehicles and other heavy equipment. Captain Bryme signaled the men to load the platform. Lt. Nekot left a security detachment at the top of the lift to guard the camp and the rest of the units proceeded down the tunnel. On the way down the tunnel, the lights began to flicker back to life detecting the presence of the team and lighting their way. An eerie feeling griped the strike team as they proceeded down into the complex. After a very short ride on the lift, they arrived on the ground floor and apparently main entrance into the complex.

Bryme turned to Snider whom almost instinctively went to work on the door. This time the procedure took a bit longer. Bryme assumed this was because the protocols had been changed or were a little tougher to crack. Snider cracked the door to reveal a massive facility similar to Novan Central Command Hubs. Although with the advent of superior shielding technologies defense facilities didn’t have to be this far underground. Just like before, the facility began to automatically come to life. With the lights on the crew could see the massive size of the facility. Several elevator shafts appeared to lead down deeper into the complex and what appeared to be the remains of a massive hanger door loomed over the ceiling.

Lt. Nekot sighed and turned to the other team members and said rather disappointingly, “This place is fucking hug, its going to take forever to search this place!”

Several hours passed and the crew was still exploring the first level of the facility. Snider and the Captain were busy accessing the main terminal and attempting to get systems online. The facility was partly automated, at least from what they could tell. Even so it was still very primitive and the language barrier was prevent them from making expedient progress.

Nekot’s marine muddled around what they only assumed was a launch bay of sorts. They chuckled silently to themselves telling jokes until they were interrupted by blaring alarms. The crew looked around in stunned silence. Snider and the Captain immediately attempted to figure out what the hell was going on. Lt. Nekot and his men had other priorities; he quickly flipped up crates, moved the vehicles and prepared a hasty fighting position. Whatever was coming, they would be ready for it.

Lt. Raine pressed several buttons on his console. The image of a ship appeared on the main viewer. “Unknown class of vessel, by the looks of it, it is very very old. I’m not entirely sure how its still flying. Scans appear to be that it is composed of elements from several dozen different ships. Logic would suggest that they have been savaging off ships in this sector. That is probably what attacked that survey ship and would explain why we couldn’t match their weapon signatures. It does outclass us in size, but their weapons are primitive. I doubt they would pose much of a threat to us. But I don’t think they’ve spotted us yet. They appear to be headed on an approach vector with the compound.”

Myra paused, “Well it did make sense. But what could they possibly want at the compound? Could they be the owners coming to reclaim their facility?”

Raine nodded, “Probably…. Commander, it would appear as if they are launching something, looks like…landing craft….should I engage?”

Myra had a very tough decision to make. It they fired, they could start an incident with the owners of the facility…. But if they landed ground troops then the Captain would be in trouble. It was moments like this that she hated being in command…

Lt. Raine pressed several buttons on his console. The image of a ship appeared on the main viewer. “Unknown class of vessel, by the looks of it, it is very very old. I’m not entirely sure how its still flying. Scans appear to be that it is composed of elements from several dozen different ships. Logic would suggest that they have been savaging off ships in this sector. That is probably what attacked that survey ship and would explain why we couldn’t match their weapon signatures. It does outclass us in size, but their weapons are primitive. I doubt they would pose much of a threat to us. But I don’t think they’ve spotted us yet. They appear to be headed on an approach vector with the compound.”

Myra paused, “Well it did make sense. But what could they possibly want at the compound? Could they be the owners coming to reclaim their facility?”

Raine nodded, “Probably…. Commander, it would appear as if they are launching something, looks like…landing craft….should I engage?”

Myra had a very tough decision to make. It they fired, they could start an incident with the owners of the facility…. But if they landed ground troops then the Captain would be in trouble. It was moments like this that she hated being in command.

She was frozen in the command chair as she watched the unknown enemy ship launch two small craft toward the planet. She could only assume that they were some sort of assault team. She wasn’t sure if they were hostile or not, and time was running out. The assault craft would reach the facility within 2 minutes at their present velocity which limited her option. The enemy ship still hadn’t detected them and Lt. Raine had managed to ascertain that the radiation and the Divine Wind’s EM field were masking their signal which meant she didn’t have to make a decision while being fired upon. For some odd reason, once the unknown ship entered orbit, they lost contact with the Captain. So she had to figure out what to do on her own. Myra was a confident woman, but had only really been in command once on her own and even then she was with several other ships so the decision wasn’t hers alone. Whatever she did though, she had to act fast.

Myra stood up from her chair, finally deciding what she was going to do. She walked to the middle of the bridge, turned to her crew and spoke in a decision manner, handing out orders without hesitation. “Lt. Raine, ready weapons on those craft, Lt. Hoshe hail the enemy ship. Use the translators to send a message in the language of the owners of the facility. Helm, get the engines powered up, if we are going to get into a shooting match, it won’t be on the ground! Put us in between those landing craft and the enemy ship.”

All stations reported in the affirmative and the crew could feel the ship starting to lift off. Lt. Hoshe was the last to report in having a bit of trouble matching the language completely. Once Myra received her acknowledgment, she began to speak to the unknown ship.

After a short pause, the enemy ship responded with an audio message only. “You Hraxail have upgraded your ship but you shall still be destroyed! EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE!!!!” Then the channel went dead.

The crew was stunned for a second until Lt. Raine shouted from his station, “COMMANDER ENEMY SHIP IS FIRING!!!” Seconds later bright blue particle beams started cutting through the sky. The enemy ship was firing blindly into their last known flight path. The ECM battery was doing its job, the enemy couldn’t get a lock, but they could still spew death down upon them. Several glancing blows hit the side of the ship, but the shields held.

Lt. Raine frustratingly sent the orders to the fire command stations. They all reported back the same thing, “Radiation interfering with targeting, going to manual”.

The Divine Wind’s main battery chattered to life. With the targeting computer non-responsive, their main missile battery was useless. The gunners hadn’t had a whole lot of practice firing their guns manually, let alone at a fast moving craft on this kind of trajectory. As the ship sliced up into the path of the two assault ships, the main cannon of the Divine Wind had an unimpeded shot at the lead vessel. Firing a bright blue neutron beam, it almost completely vaporized the 1st small craft. The 2nd continued on its path unimpeded. Several bursts from the aft PDA managed to clip the craft and send it sparingly into the facility for a crash landing. With the two small craft neutralized the Divine Wind continued to accelerate toward the larger craft in orbit.

----------------------------------------------------------

Inside the facility Captain Bryme’s away team was busy trying to figure out what was going on. Apparently the sensors at the facility were still nominally functional. It had picked up a ship in orbit, one it easily identified as an enemy. It’s auto defenses began to arm themselves and the internal sensors switched to active mode. Snider reasoned that the system was in a standby mode to conserve power and since it didn’t pick up the Divine Wind on approach, hadn’t armed itself. Now with a viable threat in bound, it decided that the crew were intruders and had opened fire upon them.

Lt. Nekot and his men took cover behind their firing positions. They linked the shield generators on the ATAV’s together to form a sort of protective perimeter. It protected them from most of the enemy fire, but they wouldn’t last for long. The Lt. and his men were busy trying to shoot out what turrets they could find. While the Captain and Lt. Commander Snider tried to turn the damn thing off. Things were going relatively well too, until the team heard a crash, and looked up to see flaming wreckage crash through the hanger doors. The hulk smashed down on the landing pad adjacent to where the group was standing. Almost instantly, the turrets that were left began to train their sights on the wreck, apparently deeming it a greater threat then the crew.

About a minute later, dozens of bots began to pour out of the wreckage. In a much more exposed position than the crew, they made easy targets for the turrets. But they just kept coming and unfortunately the Lt. had destroyed most of the heavier turrets first so only the small arms variants were able to attack the large incoming battle droids.
Lt. Nekot spun the large Vulcan Cannon on the front of his ATAV toward the attacking droids. He let lose shredding the tightly clustered group to pieces. Screaming and hollering like wild men, even the scientist stopped tinkering with the console to join the firefight. These droids weren’t very smart or heavily armed, but there were determined. They continued to charge the position even over the broken bodies of their comrades.

Several minutes later, several larger bots exited the wreckage. These units appeared to be carrying much heavier weapons including miniature missile launchers. One bot launched a missile and it exploded on the outside of the shield. However this was too much for the weakened perimeter to take and it soon failed. One of the other Remen’s sent a rocket in return fire and destroyed the droid. Even with the threat removed, their perimeter was collapsing.

Small arms fire killed one of the lightly armed Ashqa techs. The Remens heavy EV assault suits protected them from most of it. However another heavy assault bot readied itself to fire another missile at the group. Lt. Nekot swung his Vulcan at the enemy and let loose another volley. Several rounds hit the droid knocking it down. Unfortunately it didn’t destroy it and it proceeded to get back up. Several seconds of firing later the cannon stopped. Nekot looked down at the ammo counter, it read empty. The other two vehicles had also run out of ammo and the rocket launchers read empty as well. Nekot could see his life flash before his eyes as he heard the wizz of the missile and felt a concussion wave wash over him.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Divine Wind hurtled toward the enemy ship. This wasn’t exactly the best idea, considering the enemy ship was at least cruiser size. Lt. Raine’s scans had proven to be wrong and the ship was much tougher than predicted. While its low yield energy weapons didn’t do much to phase the Divine Wind’s shield, its missiles were extremely dangerous. This was a fight that the Divine Wind wasn’t designed to carry out. It was more for screening the fleets against fighters and other small ships, not slugging it out with a cruiser. Either way they were in the thick of it now. Since they got clear of the radiation, they were able to fire their missiles at the enemy ship. Several dozen HAVOC missiles left the rails and streaked toward the target.

“Continue firing! We have to close the range on them to get out of their missile we should be ok.”

The Divine Wind was much faster and agile than the enemy cruiser. They managed to evade most of the ships heavy guns and rapidly close the range. However, they soon realized this is what the enemy cruiser wanted. Seconds later a ghostly message crossed the tactical screen, “NUCLEAR LAUNCH DETECTED!”

The crew watched as several missiles streaked toward them. 4/5 of the missiles were intercepted by the ships PDA as the ship banked hard to starboard hoping to avoid the missiles. Several jammers were deployed aft. Luckily the missile tracked the jammers and the ship was saved from a direct hit. However, the massive blast shock wave still struck the ship, violently shaking it. Its shields managed to absorb most of the blast, but the energy from the blast still managed to overload several relays and plunged the ship into darkness before the emergency systems kicked in.

Myra and the other members of the crew checked their stations. Myra immediately called for a damage report. Raine swiveled in his chair, and reportedly grimly, “We’re dead in the water ma’am. Engines, weapons, long range sensors and main power are all offline. Switching to external cameras….”

Raine worked his station and cycled through the cameras. He finally found the one with the enemy ship on it and displayed the image on the main viewer.

Myra cringed as she saw several small objects moving toward them. Myra spoke silently to herself, “My god they are launching breaching pods….”

Myra sighed trying to hold back her fear. She pressed the button on her console, “All hands, prepare to repel all boarders!”

As the security alert went out, the crew could only watch as the breaching pod got closer. Myra wasn’t too horribly confident about their chances. With most of the marines off the ship, their defensive abilities were greatly weakened. Chances are they wouldn’t be able to hold out against successive waves, especially with most of the interior defenses offline. But still they would fight for their lives and go out in battle like true warriors.

Myra and the crew secured the bridge as they watched the incoming craft approached the ship. Just as they were about to contact with the ship, they struck by several missiles and exploded. The crew happily watched as three broadswords cut across screen engaging the remaining boarding pods. Lt. Raine scrolled the cameras and found two more ships moving toward them and firing at enemy ship.

An image of the Captain of the lead cruiser popped up on the main viewer. “This is Captain Michael Fritz of the INS Yivo we have come to assist.”

Myra happily dropped back into her chair visibily relieved that the cavalry had arrived. “This is Commander Myra we gladly accept your assistance, but the Captain is on the planet and needs it more than us. We are sending you his coordinates.”

“Roger that, Venerest proceed to the planet to assist Captain Bryme, Proximis protect the Divine Wind all other ships with me!”

“ROGER THAT!” replied the several ships in the formation. The Venerest broke hard toward the surface while the Proximis moved into position between the cruiser and the Divine Wind. The Yivo and its two escorts then proceeded to engage the enemy cruiser with their main guns. The enemy cruiser, caught off guard was blindsided by the barrage of enemy fire that racked its hull. The Yivo easily shrugged off the return fire sent by the enemy cruiser. Captain Fritz ordered another full broadside and the heavy beams easily ripped through the enemy cruiser, causing it to explode, littering the sky with debris.

Lt. Nekot picked himself up off the floor and tried to shake off the ringing in his ears. He looked up to see several Remen Marines running toward him. The firing had stopped and their appeared to be something hovering over their position. He looked up to see the massive under belly of a planetary assault pod attached to a corvette. The newly arrived marines helped Lt. Nekot and the other members of the away team to their feet.

Captain Bryme walked around to inspect his men. Several were wounded and at least 3 were KIA with another 2 probably. He tapped Lt. Nekot on the shoulder and just nodded his head. The two had a sort of unspoken way of acknowledging that they’d just been through hell.

They were soon joined by another Remen Marine wearing a custom armor. He stopped to salute the captain as he addressed him, “Captain Bryme, Lt. Nekot, I am Captain Sorins of the 6th Universal Explorers Corp. My men and I have been sent to assist you in securing this facility.”

Bryme nodded, “Damn good to have you guys. You saved our asses back there. Snider, what’s the status of the facility?”

Snider was already working on the terminal by the time the captain addressed him. He turned to the captain and placed a miniature model on the display. “It looks like the rest of the facility is still intact. The security system is still active on the other levels but I can’t shut them down for here. There are central terminals in every section that we are going to have to find to disable. I can show your engineers how to disable the terminals, but they are going to have to find them.”

Captain Bryme and the other officers nodded as Captain Fritz hailed the group from his cruiser. “Captain Bryme report!”

“Sir, we’ve got the landing bay setup, we are about to proceed down into the facility once the rest of the marines are deployed” replied Bryme quickly.

Fritz groaned and shook his head, “Very well, get to work men, Bryme you will be in command down there, I’ll inform fleet of your progress. Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Aye sir!” Bryme said hastily as he ran off to get the marines together.

Captain Sornis and his team crept through the semi light hallways of the facility. They’d been slugging their way through defenses, barriers and other annoyances for the last month. During this month they had managed to accurately translate about 85% of the alien language as well as get a picture of what they looked like. With this information they’d learned a great deal about this place and what happened to the race that occupied it. This facility was classified as Gattca UMF04. They weren’t sure but they could only figure that the UMF04 was the designation for the type of base and number of the facility similar to the designation given to ships.

They’d figured out that the race that built the base was called the Hraxail. The final entry into the archive told the tale of how they’d left about 750-1000 years ago in the mist of a major war. The base was evacuated hastily while the planet was being bombed. Nothing else was mentioned on what happened to the species afterward but their end in the vast expanse of space couldn’t have been good.

Captain Sornis tried to process the magnitude of a species being blasted to the brink of extinction. Not that it was anything new. Star Empires were brought to their knees in a variety of ways. War was just the quickest and most convenient. However, Sornis wasn’t too horribly concerned with things that had died hundreds of years ago. He was mainly concerned with the men who were dying trying to secure this place. While it was old it still held many formidable defenses and booby-traps. His more experienced men were able to spot these defenses and take them out before they began a problem. It was the greener troops who were getting themselves killed, mostly from dumb rookie mistakes.

Sornis and his platoon leaders were doing their best to keep the rookies from getting themselves killed. But at the same time wanted them to learn and adapt. This environment was far more forgiving than most of the others they would encounter. They had yet to run into anything other than a low level security bot. With the lack of sentient leadership they were easily able to get the upper hand is most situations. Most rookies thought this was a cakewalk, but Sornis had to remind them that just because it was easy didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous.

Sornis was broken from his train of thought as they approached a new intersection. These were usually guarded and had to be cleared out carefully. Sornis motioned to one of his men, “Pvt. Carmine move up and disable the security grid. Watch the walls it looks like a class 4.”

Sornis and the others had developed a system of identifying what kind of grid they were encountering. In this case a class 4 referred to heavy Gauss cannon emplacement triggered by laser or motion detectors. Luckily their Ashqa buddies had calibrated their visors to see the laser trips.

Sornis watched closely as Carmine navigated his way through the laser. He was one of the smaller Remens which made him ideal for this type of situation. Carmine reached the console without incident and proceeded to use the auto-hacker given to him by the Ashqa techs. Carmine placed his rifle against the table as he went to work. The hack was going without incident until Carmine bumped the table to reach a distant button the console. Doing this was just enough to knock his rifle off its base and it landed on one of the laser trips.

“Fuck” was all that Pvt. Carmine managed to get out before the security field activated and a Gauss cannon appeared in front of him. The heavy round tore through his helmet killing him almost instantly. Several other cannons appeared from off the wall and began to fire upon Sornis and his marines. All jumped for cover but two in the middle of the formation were caught in the middle of the crossfire and cut down.

Sornis quickly ordered his men to open fire against the targets. Using their targeting sensors they were able to safely attack from behind their covered positions. After several shot minutes of gunfire, the room was silenced. Not the best entry but it got the job done. It was a scene that was being repeated all over the compound.

No VacancyAway Team
KL-GVH-11c, Sector 2121
December 26th, 2252

Elsewhere Captain Bryme and Lt. Nekot had made their way into a large hanger type facility. Upon entering they saw what appeared to be thousands of black boxes just standing around. They appeared to be some sort of inactive AI Bot. The strange thing was they were standing in perfect formation, almost as if they were waiting on something.

Nekot was the first to suggest that they go figure out what was going on. “Sir, looks like they are just standing there, chances are they aren’t even powered. Maybe we should go investigate.”

Bryme thought for a minute before responding in the negative, “I don’t think that’s the best idea Captain. As much hell as they’d gone through to get down here, he wasn’t exactly sure that they should be just blindly walking up to thousands of robots who may or may not be dangerous. There is probably a better way to do that”

Nekot rolled his eyes, before looking at Snider, “Can you make my comm unit speak in their language?”

Snider thought for a second, “Sure it should only take a minute or two to make the necessary modifications. Why what are you thinking?”

Nekot chuckled, “I’m going to pretend to be one of their masters. They’re just stupid robots what the fuck are they gonna know. According to the pictures we found of these things, we are about the same size.”

“Yeah minus the fact that you don’t have four arms” commented Snider sarcastically.

Bryme nodded, “I agree Lt. that’s not the best idea. We need to come up with something else.”

Nekot shook his head and chuckled, “Nah, they are a buncha dumb bots. I could run over there and kick them all over. I got this!”

Bryme, almost out of a sense of curiosity to see what would happen decided to ok the plan and ordered Snider to make the modifications. Nekot waited until Snider finished the modifications and then took off down the hallway toward the formation. He approached the lead robot which was also had four arms, similar to the pictures of the Haraxil they had found.

Nekot stopped a few feet away and turned on the translator. “Hello leader, I am here to retrieve you and your kind. You are being pressed into service by order of high command.”

The lead robot started to bow in salute but stopped halfway down. Its head twitched a bit and almost instantly the robot reached out and grabbed Nekot and pinned him against the wall. Nekot scream in pain while the bot took his third hand he ripped off his helmet and with his forth turned it into a gun and pointed it at the rest of the away team. The rest of the bots soon joined you pointing their assorted weapons at the team. The rest of the marines were about to return the favor when Bryme intervened.

“HOLD!” screamed Bryme as he knew that the instincts of his troops would kick in and they would start a firefight with these robots. Given the odds, it would be more of a massacre than a firefight. Bryme turned to his marines who were itching to raise their weapons, “HOLD YOUR POSITION GODDAMNIT! WEAPONS DOWN!!!!!”

Reluctantly his men responded lowering their weapons. The bots unsure of what to do began to take up positions around the crew. Several flight variants hovered above the team pointing heavier weapons at the team. Many men could see the futility in their situation but still wanted to go down swinging. But Bryme could sense something different. If they wanted to blast them, they would have done it already. They seemed to be just as confused as they were. He had to take control of the situation ASAP.

Bryme rushed forward screaming at the killbot, “WAIT WAIT! HOLD ON A SECOND!”

The lead bot turned its blackened eyes toward the Captain. It’s translator attempting to make sense of the Captain’s language to no avail. Snider rushed up behind him and quickly went to work on his suit.

The bot slowly began to form its thoughts in its head, “Who……are…….you….???

Snider tapped the Captain on the shoulder giving him the thumbs up that his suit was working. “We are men of the Novan Imperium. We have come on an exploratory mission to this sector. We mean you no harm…”

The bot turned its head to the side, still trying to contemplate the situation. It was painfully obvious that he was confused. This was probably because he’d probably never heard of the Imperium or anyone other than his species since they’d been locked in this bunker for a millennium. Luckily for Nekot this cause the bot to loosen its grip on him ceasing the pain but still holding him firmly.

“Why…..why…would you deceive us…”replied the bot, sounding sort of hurt.

Bryme sighed and spoke in his most sincere voice, “I apologize for that. We weren’t sure how to approach you. We should have been truthful. I know that initial level of trust is now broken between us, but we really do wish to help you…” Bryme took off his helmet, “I am Captain Rodimus Bryme of the Imperium Naval Ship Divine Wind. We have come from a far to seek the truth about what was going on below the surface of this planet.”

“Where are our people….? General Herlax, Commander Ricckin, Commander Torranis….” Commented the bot as he stared off into space.

Bryme sighed again, “Well I don’t know how to put this delicately, so I’ll just go ahead and say it… from what we can tell, all of your people have either fled or been wiped out…. It looks like there was some sort of war and they all abandoned this sector…”

The bots eyes shot open and he dropped Nekot on his ass in shock. It stumbled back into its comrades. They collectively made an indescribable noise but it was one of sorrow and pain. Bryme and his men could only standby and watch in horror. Suddenly the leader thrust forward again, speaking in a bit of anger in his voice, “WHY WERE WE LEFT BEHIND! WHY DID THEY NOT CALL UPON US TO DEFEND HARAXIL FROM THE DEMONS!!!!”

Bryme had no easy answer for this. War was tricky and dangerous business. Things could have changed quickly and dramatically. But they did know a little information about what had happened and would do their best to share it with their new friends. Bryme turned to Snider and spoke softly, “Contact the fleet and get me the morale officer down here. These guys are in a world of hurt and will probably need someone to talk to later.”

Snider saluted and silently ran off to the comms room on the upper levels while Bryme moved forward touching the bot softly, “We have much to discuss….”

“DAD I WANT THIS MISSION!” screamed Sky Captain Blair as he strode through the complex following his father.

The Lord Marshall grumbled at his son while trying to keep in front of him, “Why the hell do you want this dead end mission? There is nothing out there, that sector is dead! There is no glory to be achieved by walking around a cemetery!”

“That’s what you think. We don’t know what’s out there. Hell as far as we know there could be an invasion army out there waiting to pounce on us!” retorted the Sky Captain.

The Marshall just rolled his eyes and turned to his son, “Wouldn’t you rather go on one of the suppression missions? Those are sure to bring you valuable combat experience.”

The Sky Captain shook his head violently, “NO DAD I DON’T! I don’t want to live under your shadow, right next to home. I want to go explore the galaxy on my own. Become my own man. I can’t do that on the Imperium’s boarder. You know if anything happens you’ll send half the star fleet to help! I want to do something on my own without you looking over my shoulder. I want to grow up and be my own man, plot my own destiny.”

The Lord Marshall turned to his son and spoke softly trying to calm his raging temper. The Sky Captain had a way of forgetting his place when talking to his father. “Fine, if you want to become a man that’s one thing. But you can’t act like a spoiled little brat. I am your father, but you will still address me as your superior officer when dealing with military matters.”

The Sky Captain took a deep breath and relaxed. “You are right sir, I apologize, and my actions were a bit out of line. However, I still want to go on this mission. I think it will be good for me. Besides, how many commanders do you know that would volunteer for something like this? That would volunteer to go run off turning over stones and such in a possibly fruitless effort?”

The Lord Marshall chuckled, “You’re right. Of course, you will have to explain that to your mother….”

Father and son both grimaced at the daunting task and then promptly laughed it off as they proceed down the hall.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
That was three months ago. Now he was sitting in a bombed out shelter talking to a cyborg. Certainly not what he had signed up for when he volunteered for this mission. From what he had managed to gather, Captains Fritz and Bryme had made a pretty good first impression on them. They’d managed to convince them not to wipe out the expedition which was a plus. This gave them a suspicion that they might not be as devoted or as xenophobic as the Remens were when they first encountered the Ashqa and were willing to help. But then again, being abandoned on a planet for hundreds of years could make you extremely grateful to however came to visit. And so far, the Cybernetic Assault Units or CAUs for short were rather receptive.

They had spent the last few weeks helping them repair the damage to their base and upgrade their systems to be compliment with Imperium Tech. They were already helping repair the base hanger and getting the Remen troops setup in quarters and such. Most of the vehicle storage space was still open and they had showed the Remens where some other intact facailities were they would help them setup a base. Most of these facailities were in sections of the base that had been cut off, it would take months to rebuild or bypass the shattered sections, but it was a task they were up to. Even in exploring the base, they wouldn’t go past certain levels. Apparently the bottom of the facility scared the crap out of them and Blair soon understood why.

After a couple months of work, they managed to bypass the security systems and get into the restricted part of the base. Upon entering it, they found a massive underground factory. It was a massive underground network literally built into the planet’s crust. Crude shielding and advanced tunneling methods made it all possible. On further examination it was found that the planet was powered by the geothermal energy derived from the planets core. That would explain how it had remained active for so long. Based on schematics found in the database, it literally ran the length of the planet. It also detailed the basis of the CAU program and greatly helped Blair and company understand their new friends.

They were definitely some form of hybrid soldier. They exhibited the cognitive abilities of a sentient life form more than they did a computer. However it would appear from the logs from the facility that their brains were merged with their computers. This removed some of their cognitive functions but enhanced others. Psych examinations had shown that some of the CAUs were very disconnected. Only a handful, mostly the leaders were lucid. None could remember their names, or anything much about how they became to be CAUs. There wasn’t any data in the computer about the subjects chosen, it was most likely top secret or lost from file corruption or something, but the computer did the final log of the chief engineer of the site left. CAU001, the leader of the CAUs managed to convince the others to listen to it.

“This is Professor Xhidki. I am what you could consider your father. You all were chosen to be the last chance at victory for our people. You all volunteered to become the final Defenders of Hraxail; an unstoppable force that would drive back those who would threaten our way of life. However, in the end, we ran out of time. The final production and automation sequence will continue to run until you are all finished being produced. Shutting it down mid cycle would have killed all of you. That is something that I could not live with. Hopefully you will all survive the creation process and hopefully one day we can return for you. If not, it the worst happens, you must all live on as the Legacy of Hraxail!”

As the message ended CAU001 appeared to have mixed feelings about the message. While he wasn’t vocal about it, Bryme and the other Ashqa had learned to read their eyes to gauge how they were feeling. Empathy wasn’t something that the Remens were very good at which is why it had taken them a while to pick up on it. While the CAUs spirits were dashed by the news, they weren’t broken. With their last orders in place, they redoubled their efforts to rebuild their society and the Sky Captain intended to give them just that chance.

The Sky Captain and his newly appointed command staff sat in one of the briefing rooms for the base. The discovery of the factory and final orders had left them in a bit of a quandary. Naturally Captain Bryme wanted to explore the factory more and find out more about its technology. His Asqha engineering prowess and expertise would serve them well should they figure out how to use it. Likewise Captain Fritz wanted to further militarize the base and use it as a staging area to retake the rest of the sector. His aggressiveness was something to be admired. Fritz was the kind of Remen you needed to win wars.

While both were good ideas, they did leave him in a pickle. What to do about the CAUs. On one hand, he had promised to help them find their people. On the other, blabbing about the existence of the base was probably a bad idea. They only had a handful of ships and no real SDF. Should anyone of the regional powers decide they wanted to take the base, there wasn’t much they could do to stop them without full blown support from the rest of fleet. While an attack by outside powers was unlikely, it was still a possibility that they couldn’t ignore. However, they also couldn’t ignore the pledge they had made to the CAUs.

After a bit of fact finding, they discovered that there was some remnant of the Hraxil still about in the galaxy. Best they could figure they’d wondered the galaxy for 500 years before finally settling down in the Malan Coalition. However, they were calling themselves the Xinjab now. One would suspect that the names of the planet and people got switched during the long voyage across the stars. Still whatever they were calling themselves now they were still apart of the Hraxil name and Blair only felt compelled to tell his new allies.

Considering their working relation with the CAUs it only seemed right. Some of the men had begun calling them Legacy Units or LUs. However they reserved this for the more lucid commander units. They had even given some of which they had given names. For instance CAU001 was now referred to as General Grixxel and CAU008 another commander model was referred to as General Kraxack. This small gesture gave them back little bit of their former lives and helped them cope with the massive shock some of them were in. Blair also felt it necessary to let the LUs have a say in the decisions regarding what would happen to them. That is why he allowed Grixxel and Kraxack a seat on his command council.

Grixxel was more than ready to try and forget the Xinjab and move on however Kraxack had taken the opposite stand and the two were often involved in heated discussions over the matter.

“They have forgotten us so why should we care about them? They settled on the other side of the galaxy and haven’t even tried to look for us. The Novans show up and offer us friendship and a chance to rebuild! Why should we look back to our past?” asserted Grixxel.

“Because they are our people, they are of us! We must go and help them. I believe if they had been in a position to do so, they would have come looking for us. Had it not been for the Malanic Guard, they would have been wiped out! Then we really would have been the last!” retorted Kraxack.

Caught in the middle and divided by his own staff, Blair had to play mediator. Something he didn’t have particular experience with, but he was learning on the job. “Well I think you both have good points. However you two are the leaders of the LUs. We can’t have diverging opinions on this. I am fully committed to doing what I can to help you restore order in this sector.
How about we setup a meeting with the two of you and a representative from the Malan? I’m sure at the very least your comrades would like to know what has become of your people. It should give them some comfort. I however cannot and will not deny you the right to self-determination. You are our friends, not our servants. If you wish to depart and help them, I will not stop you nor force you to stay and work. The choice is yours, but whatever you decide don’t leave any bad blood behind and respect the others decision.”

The two commanders’ eyes glowed showing their respective emotions. After a few minutes of silence the two finally agreed. Their overly competitive nature shown through as both were attempting to assert their dominance. Blair had learned that the Xinjab were extremely competitive. Only the war managed to unify them. Should the two commanders not agree, there was a very real chance they would have a firefight on their hands which would be disastrous to both sides. He could only hope that a meeting with the Malan would go in their favor and put the issue to rest. However he did have the problem of keeping the true potential of the base a secret. But for that he knew he could count on the SMS to deal with that part of the equation.

Captain Uyha Arlock and his XO Commander Spizon Altec sat on the observation deck of Nova Station. Both men overlooked the massive armada being assembled for the task at hand. Some 50 ships of all various types and classes were being assembled for this operation. Arlock and Altec were both seasoned commanders of the Civil War. However this was their first expedition outside of Imperium space. Command had wanted to flaunt victories in a first armed expedition in front of the media to reassure them that this was the right thing to do.

A recon in force was what it was called. Command had picked a rather soft target for the first expedition. Even though they were hunting pirates, both men knew that this would be a huge propaganda win should they pull it off. This would help cement the Lord Marshall’s plan to expand deployment of Imperium forces across the quadrant.

Captain Arlock took a sip of his drink and chuckled, “You know Altec if we fail, we will undoubtedly be severely punished. It would probably be best if we didn’t return rather than face the wrath of the Lord Marshall.”

Altec nodded his head, “You’re probably right. We’d probably be demoted and reassigned to a scout ship if we are luckily.”

“Why are you two always so fatalistic?” Commented a female voice.

Both men turned around to see Captain Insra Mizara walking up behind them.

“Mind if I join you, unless of course you boys don’t want me to rain on your negativity parade.” Mizara said sarcastically.

“Oh no by all means join us Captain. We could use that wonderful ego stroking you always are so willing to provide” responded Arlock sarcastically.

Mizara rolled her eyes and spoke softly and with a bit of seduction in her voice, “Your ego doesn’t require much stroking to make you satisfied.”

Uyha could only grunt in frustration as he lacked a comeback for that one. Mizara could always keep up with his jokes which helped their chemistry.

Altec could only chuckle at the two Captains. “Do I need to leave you two alone?”

Mizara and Uyha exchanged a short glance, having an entire conversation with just a look before Mizara joined the table. An awkward silence loomed over the table.

Altec was the first to break the silence, “So Captain Mizara you’re not coming with us I take it?”

“No Altec, you boys get to go play cowboys. I have diplomatic business to attend to with the NU.”

“The Pinili? What the hell could fleet want with them?” questioned Arlock.

“Well you know Command is looking for new friends. The Stilor apparently scare them to death we could use that as a good place to start relations. Plus they are also looking for new friends so why not. Not to mention they have lots of unused shipbuilding capacity which Command wants to make use of. At least that’s what they tell me” responded Mizara.

Both men nodded, “Yes best not to question orders. I think they still space you for that don’t they?” questioned Arlock sarcastically.

Mizara smiled back, “Me too. Congrats on the upgrade I hear they assigned you to the God of War.”

Arlock shook his head and pointed to his new ship out of the window, “Yep, brand new Kratos class. It was the Sky Captain Blair’s last command before he got transferred to the Excalibur. She has been sitting in space dock for the last couple months waiting on a new captain. I guess that just turned out to be me.”

Mizara nodded, “What about you Altec, when are you gonna stop following this old bat around and get your own command?”

Altec cleared his throat and tried to sound respectful, “I don’t think that I will. I’m not entirely sure I want my own ship. Besides, who would bail the Captain out of trouble if I left him? The guy would be lost without me!”

Arlock laughed and playfully nudged his XO. Imperium commanders often shared a closer relation to their subordinates than other galactic militaries. Treating them like family in the informal setting. This often led to problems but it insured that they all held a close bond and would stick together through just about anything.

“You better look after him Altec, I won’t be there to save your asses this time like I did or Morgana II.”

Arlock rolled his eyes and laughed it off. The group continued to share in the old memories and laughs when Mizara’s comm. went off.

“CAPTAIN MIZARA PLEASE REPORT TO HANGER 4.”

Mizara sighed and finished her drink and stood up to leave, “Well boys looks like duty calls.”

“Mizara I’ll walk you to your ship” blurted Alrock standing to meet her.
Mizara paused for a moment. Even though this was a low risk operation, there was still the possibility that she might not see her friends again. It was painful but it was something that came with the job. “Thanks Arlock but that’s not necessary.”

Arlock shook his head knowing what she meant he hugged Mizara and sat back down.

She exhaled and smiled, I’ll see you boys when you get back… stay safe old friend.“

The two commanders exchanged a non-official salute as they watched Mizara walk down the hallway. It was always awkward saying goodbye to friends before a combat mission. Arlock took another sip of his drink and went back to conversing with Altec trying not to think about the fact he may never see his lover again.

The members of the Imperium High Command sat attentively in their seats. The Lord Marshall was presenting them with the bigger picture of the overall scope of his plans. With multiple operations going on at the same time the Lord Marshall felt compelled to firmly present his vision to quite his detractors. Normally detractors were dealt with quietly usually involving the troops in black uniforms. However the Lord Marshall was hoping to avoid a repeat of the mistakes that his predecessors had made. This time the Lord Marshall would silence his critics with results and facts not force.

The Lord Marshall stood slightly to the right of the projector with the details of the fleet mobilization listed. His tone was serious and direct. He wanted to make sure that his command staff knew the ramifications of failure in this first major move for the Imperium.
“The fleet hasn’t been this active since we re-established order. With the deployment of the 2nd Fleet to sector 2521, this is officially the largest and most important fleet mobilization outside of the Imperium since the Grand Expansion under the Emperor Delur. Now some of you may not seem very impressed that I didn’t pick a harder target for our first mission. Some would say that I am trying to win a propaganda victory. To those of you who say that, I would like to remind you that every victory no matter how small can be shown to boost morale. Building confidence in our troops and our commanders is the staple of any modern military machine.

The purpose of this mission is to give our troops some experience in tracking and destroying more elusive enemies. In a fixed fleet engagement I am more than confident in our abilities to hold our own. However the major weakness of many star empires has been hit and run tactics. Chasing pirates may seem trivial but it will teach them how to best counter this threat. While our AIs can simulate these scenarios, there is no replacement for the real thing. This exposes them to the fear of death, something that is vitally important to any soldier on the battlefield. We have all served on the front and we know it’s the fear of death which pushes you to fight harder and survive. I want all of our recruits to feel and experience this in some way before we have a real threatening enemy to deal with.”

The Lord Marshall stopped for a minute and listened to the rumbling of his commanders. All had served during the Civil War and had valuable experience. But most of their Novan successors didn’t have this experience and perhaps running around killing pirates was a good way to get some skills. That wasn’t something that they could openly disagree with because it did make a lot of sense. However it wasn’t the bigger more public missions that were drawing the Lord Marshall heat. It was the smaller more personal missions that had many up in arms. Sky Marshall Sutry Pois was one of the main opponents of the deployment of Task Force 1 out into the middle of nowhere.

The Sky Marshall pulled up a list of note worthy things from the expedition log. "As you can see, there is nothing of note in the sector. All major star systems are dead and not even pirates bother to roam this sector. There is nothing of wort there!"

The Lord Marshall chuckled. It was just like Pois to leave out the important facts and fail to see the bigger picture. "I like how this rendering fails to mention the cyborg production factory found on the planet. Or does your security clearance not rate you high enough to see those details? Also I would like to point out that the dead zone offers the ideal base to build up an army of cybernetic killers in secrecy. Trust me, this sector is the most important find in a while. With the battle with the pirates a way to hide the losses, we should be easily able to mass produce newer variants to do our bidding. Remember Pois, everything I do is for a reason and I do have a plan!"

Pois sullenly dropped his head and sat back down. The rest of the meeting proceeded without interruption from the Sky Marshall or any other detractors.

OOC: This is the end of an event that Fulton started for me a couple years ago when I started. This completes the base renevation process and the start of my own adventure. This also marks my official return to the game

The Prodigal Son
Legacy Base
Xinjab Prime
Sector 2121
January 2254

Sky Captain Blair and his command staff were in the newly finished command center. After a year and a half of constant work and repairs, Legacy Base was now a fully functional outpost. Over the last year and a half, all the outdated Xinjab systems had been replaced and the Legacy units had been rearmed and retrained in Imperium ways of combat. To give them the ships in the sector a way to repair themselves, High command had authorized the building of a small shipyard to help service the expedition. 2 escorts had been completed at the end of the last year and 1 cruiser slipway was coming online at the end of the month.

The sensor net was halfway deployed because of the limited number of ships that they could deployed and the travel time before Nova Prime, but it was on schedule to be completed within the next couple years. Not that they really needed it because of the dead nature of the system, but it was still of strategic importance to finish. The base in 2121 would be pivotal to a new 2 pronged expeditionary push toward the outer regions. One prong would originate from sector 2121 and one from the Imperium proper. However the later would depend on the success of operations from 2121.

The chances of success increased when General Grixxel and the other Legacy Units decided to stay with the Imperium. With the help of the Legacy Units, the Sky Captain was relatively certain that he would be able to pull off a successful operation. The Legacy Units wanted to make a new life for themselves with the Imperium, much as Blair had postulated earlier. The Malan Sector Defense Force commander had wanted to use the LUs to further his own agenda of restoring the Xinjab to some level of prominence. General Kraxxack and some of his followers were more than willing to leave Imperium control and attempt to accomplish that end.

Being a man of his word, the Sky Captain allowed them to leave. He was happy to be rid of the dissenters and remove the division within the force. Having sworn allegiance to the Imperium, General Grixxel began to help the Sky Captain plan the first steps in moving into sector 2020 and guide his people on their own destiny. Operating with limited resources, it would be important for the Sky Captain to attempt diplomacy rather than force. This is the responsibility he had hoped for when he volunteered for this mission and something that he hoped he would not screw up on.

EDIT: This is retconned to sector 4018. A new storyline will be started as a beachhead operation.

The Lord Marshall sat in the conference room with his advisers overlooking the latest year-end reports. He grimaced as he read over them. The performance of the Imperium as a whole was less than desired. Almost none of his initiatives had been as successful as he had hoped. None of his diplomatic seeds had managed to bear him any fruit. The space pirates his fleet has been sent to hunt were proving more elusive than he would have liked. The Lord Marshall could feel himself slowly losing his grip on the Imperium. The other nations on the other side of the Chaos were doing quite a bit better than him. Their trade routes were flourishing and military had grown significantly.

But what did the Imperium have to show for itself? Absolutely nothing! Over the last two years there had been weakening economic growth, a spread in piracy on its boarders and a general lack of interest from most of the allied players that it had tried court. The Lord Marshall’s critics had been silenced before by the promise of hope and change, but now they were beginning to see that this was more of the same. Soon there would be calls for his removal if something dramatic wasn’t done. But what was the question.

The usual response for this sort of thing was to sack his old command staff, and create a new one. The SMS was rather handy at making officers disappear even though it had been strictly forbidden in the new government. However the Lord Marshall knew that desperate times called for desperate measures. Pios was becoming a recurring problem, bringing up the repeated failures of Arlock and his son to do anything meaningful with the task forces they had been assigned. There was serious contemplation of having him have a shuttle accident, but that would have been far too convenient. Not that many would question it, but it wasn’t exactly the message that he wanted to send. Unfortunately he was running out of options.

This was until one of his newer Sky Marshall’s spoke up. Gokis broke the silence in the room as the Lord Marshall looked over his reports. “Ahem… excuse me sir, I have a suggestion which you might find of interest.” A new arrival from Valhalla sector, Sky Marshall Gokis had taken over after Sky Marshall Strom had retired. The young new voice was exactly what the Lord Marshall needed in his time of crisis.

The Lord Marshall slowly craned his new to turn to SM. “Yes… Gokis is it?”
Gokis nervously replied. “Yes Lord Marshall…we have all the pieces in place to deal with the pirates. We just aren't properly utilizing them. Your son is currently setting up a base in grid 4018 but is it still greatly understaffed. Captain Arlock and his forces have been deployed into grid 4118 where it is believed to be safer. However I don't think this is where the pirates are coming from. I believe that the unknown regions in the chaos harbor most of the pirates plaguing the Imperium today.” Gokis stood up to activate the holoprojector on the table.

An image popped up of Imperium space. Gokis pressed a couple of buttons on his datapad and the map changed to a mix of red and blue dots across the screen. “Now if you notice, there are a lot of red dots here, close to sectors 4120 and 4019. These dots represent unchallenged pirate attacks on our convoys in the southern sectors of the Imperium. Now if you notice these blue dots over here closer to the core, these represent challenged attacks by our escort and system patrol ships. Green dots represent challenges by allied nations in the area. The patrol presence of our navies in the area seems to thwart most of the pirate attacks. However, the frontier while heavily patrolled, doesn't have any active operations in it. Most of our attention has been focused to stop the Sancrodnian Civil war from flowing into the Imperium. While this is noble cause, the chaos is a much bigger threat that we seem to have been missing. .”

Gokis stopped for a minute and let the staff absorb in what he had said. The original plan of clearing a zone into the Gold Mine Region did appear to be running into a snag of not really finding anything. Most of the traffic in that area was rather harassment free, so his analysis did make a bit of sense. Gokis watched the faces of everyone in the room and continued.

“Now, while I’m not advocating cutting patrols in these regions, it would stand to reason that a renewed effort to cleanse the unknown regions of pirate scum would be in our best interest. Just because the areas aren’t charted, doesn’t mean that pirates don’t exist in there. Our base in the chaos will provide us with an adequate staging area to cleanse the sector of hostile. But until we have a more efficient means of transporting our people that far into space, I suggest we wade with caution. Much like the Lord Marshall had suggested previously. While contact with the other major powers is desirable. The Imperium is in no real position to challenge or give them anything of any use at the present, at least not until we can turn around our poor performance as of recent.”

The Lord Marshall could only shake his head in agreement. “That does make sense Sky Marshall Gokis. Would you like to oversee the redeployment of the second fleet into that new area of operations?”

SM Gokis smiled, “Yes sir, I would like that a lot. I have an idea on how to link the two expeditions together in a stunning PR move. Your son is currently moving back in the direction of the Imperium. Why not have our forces do the same. Head out into the chaos regions to clear the way for new populations and settlements. Trying to settle and expand between the other powers could lead to… complications… but heading out into the choas could be a much better… if not equally risky option. At least this way we won’t have to worry about getting into a shooting war with a major power. Plus we can clean up the area around our boarders and hopefully remove some of the danger.”

“Very well, it sounds like a good plan. Draw me up an operational outline and I will pass it along to fleet for approval. Sky Marshall Holmes and Santo will assist you” spoke the Lord Marshall commandingly. This new suggestion had given him his confidence back but he did need something to show the people in the interim. For that he would need to visit the Church and get some advice.

Lord Marshall Blair has announced a more focused plan in dealing with the pirates that now plague the Imperium's boarder. The chaos regions have been identified as the major source of the infestation. Sky Marshall Blair’s sortie into grid 4018 to establish a base there has revealed that pirate traffic appears to be heavy through the sector. While sector 4018 is classified as a dead sector, it has been confirmed to be teeming with pirate activity. The Lord Marshall had this to say about his sons work:

“My son’s accomplishment in sector 4018 with the establishment of Legacy Base was something that I could take pride in. It was because of his efforts that we were finally able to begin looking in the right place for the pirate menace. I always knew that he would be destined for greatness. I couldn’t be more proud of the role he is taking in this endeavor.”

While the Lord Marshall statements were rather inspiring to some, what was really inspiring was seeing the fleet of new warships headed into the darkness to battle the pirates. Over the course of the last 3 years, Imperium High Command has been building and developing the next class of warships designed specifically for anti-piracy action.

The Whitestar is a mix of the Broadsword and Rapier design. The Whitestar trades armor and heavy guns for faster engines than the Broadsword but maintains the stealth profile of a rapier. The Whitestar is said to address the problems that the Broadsword and Rapier has had in dealing with the pirate menace. The ship is much faster than its Broadsword and has an ECM suite like the rapier to help deal with pirate jamming or decoy methods. The Whitestar does bring significantly more firepower to bear than the frigate does, making it almost ideal for these sorts of operations.

The first 5 squadrons have already been delivered to the front and are expected to make their combat debut soon. Another dozen squadrons are on the drawing boards for the new few years and command is looking at increasing the size of Imperium shipyards to handle the rising demand. The Whitestar won’t be alone in their fight however. They are to be joined by the new Kratos class Heavy Cruiser as well as numerous squadrons of the new venerable omnifighter and mobile armor. These ships will add the balance needed to the fleet that it lacked before.

“It is expected with the more specific fleet building projects we are planning that we will be able to better counter the pirate threat. Traditional warships meant for line engagements simply will not suffice for this new kind of war. The Battle of Victory Station may have been the last of the super heavyweight slugging matches war planers are used to seeing. However these ships will always have a place in the fleet and will continue to serve as a symbol of national pride” said Sky Marshall Rega of the Home Fleet.

The deployment of what is now being called, “The Whitestar Fleet” seems to correspond with Sky Marshall Gokis’ departure to Victory Station to attend the Anti-Piracy Summit. Press aids told INN that the Sky Marshall was looking forward to representing the Imperium in these talks. “This is vital to us establishing good relations with those working to bring order to the chaos” said one representative.

The Sky Marshall foresees good things happening in the future for the Imperium as they move toward this new line of diplomatic policy. This break in Imperium isolationism was started 2 years ago when the Lord Marshall authorized the Diplomatic Corps to begin courting friendly nations. While these talks have been slow and labored, they are confident things will pan out eventually… Until then, the Imperium will continue to step up its enforcement methods throughout its territories and frontier lands.

Stay with INN for the latest developments on this story and many others.

Captain Arlock lay in his bed in his quarters having a drink curled up with Captain Mizara. Despite his wild night, Arlock was rather sullen. The recent news that he would be reassigned to a new directive “You know they are taking away my command right? We are being merged with Sky Marshall Blair’s Task Force 1 to make a new 4th Fleet” groaned Arlock.

Mizara sat up in the bed, “Why are you so negative Arlock. Here you are, laying in bed with a beautiful woman and all you are worried about is your command. I am fairly certain that the Sky Marshall will be more than willing to give you command of the task force when going on missions. The Kratos Class is most definitely the right ship for the job. Protecting the carriers and blasting the living shit out of anything that doesn’t get out of the way is a tall task. I don’t doubt that the Sky Marshall will still have use for you. Just don’t do anything reckless….”

Arlock looked at Mizara coldly as he slowly got out of bed and headed to the window. He watched the stars flow past and thought to himself. He sighed and murmured “You mean like the time I ventured off and nearly got the 7th Fleet destroyed at Narhim?”

Mizara sighed, “Arlock….”

Arlock grunted, “No, you’re right. Back then I was too overly zealous and got a lot of people killed. It was my mistake and I can own up to it. I just plan to not make the same mistakes again.”

Mizara walked behind Arlock and gave him a reassuring hug. “You’re right, you will do better. At least this time you will have a sold direction to go on. Not like that horrible intelligence you got on the last assignment in grid 4118.”

Alrock grunted, “Yes, that was most distressing. Every time we got a lead from Fleet Command, it would be a dead end. We should have found something by sheer dumb luck.”

Mizara dropped her head and turned away, “Arlock, you don’t think that someone is actively working against you do you? I mean… that’s the only real possible explanation as to why you didn’t find anything. Pirates are elusive, but they aren’t that damned elusive….”

Arlock sighed, “Yes, this is strange indeed; I don’t even want to think about the possible complications of thinking like this. There hasn’t been a traitor in the Imperium since the war…. Perhaps the pirates did have really good intelligence operations…”

Mizara rolled her eyes, “Yes they would have really good intel if this was a major trading sector. But sector 4118 is practically devoid of real population centers. No Arlock, they were tipped off to our presence and you know it.”

“You’re probably right. But what exactly does that mean for our operations in the Chaos? Should we be concerned?”

Mizara thought for a second before responding. “Well, I can’t make an accurate strategic forecast on the possibility until I get more information on the surrounding regions. Hopefully the Sky Marshall will be able to give me something to go on when we get there. But I wouldn’t be real concerned though. We do have strength in numbers and that should adequately defend us against any pirate attacks.”

Arlock nodded, “Yeah that makes sense. Anyway, let’s not worry about that right now. How’s about you come back to bed and we can clear our heads of this negative talk. You’re always the one that wants me to be more positive.”

Mizara smiled knowing that Arlock only listened to her advice when he wanted something, but this time, she didn’t really mind.

Director Grezno was a busy man. He and his staff had spent the last 18 months combing over data on the expansion of piracy in the Chaos. Intelligence agents across the Imperium were busy tracking down leads and trying to find a connection about the possible origins of just how the pirates were operating. As best they could tell, the patterns weren’t as random as one might think. The SMS were experts at counter operations and hunting pirates was becoming something of a specialty.

Historical comparison of past operations had shown a sharp increase in the frequency and intensity of the attacks. Despite a growing presence of patrol craft, pirates were becoming more and more daring. In some cases, they were managing to avoid patrols all together. Under normal operating circumstances, the deceptive nature of pirates had made them hard to track, but not impossible. Their new elusive skills in direct opposition to better more secret Imperium search protocols could only mean that they were getting outside help.

The real question was who was helping them. The Imperium didn’t have many enemies that weren’t home grown. The majority of the dissenters were either in prison or not a major threat to operations of this sort. That left a rather short list of people for Grezno to investigate. Of those people on the list, one stood out among the others, Sky Marshall Pois. His recent, highly vocal opposition to the Lord Marshall’s plan had made him suspect number one. And with his influence over sector defense forces and fleet deployments he was the obvious target.

And that was the real problem. Grenzo knew that any smart intelligence agency specialized in misdirection. He knew that you never go after the obvious target because he was just the bait. While Pois was most likely involved with the conspirators, he wasn’t the major player. While Pois could manage to get a few dozen ships to follow him if he defected, he was no match for the might of the combined fleet. And any information that he had, could most likely be gleaned from intelligence reports compiled by any major intelligence agency. No, there was more to this than met the eye. They key would be to look beyond the obvious into the dark depths of the Imperium to find what was really going on.

To that end, by reviewing reports and performing complex analysis of the situation, Grenzo and his staff had deduced that their was a major power, not a rouge individual, involved in the Imperium’s recent troubles. The only major powers of interest were the Dorei, Sancardians and Sorensians. The Doeri were on relatively peaceful terms with the Imperium and the Sancardians were busy with their own civil war. The only likely threat was the Sorensians. This was odd considering that the Imperium had very little contact with them ever. However it also made them the least suspicious in the grand scheme of things. The Imperium didn’t have the resources to deal with them, nor should they suspect then if they weren’t as astute as one might think.

Since the breakup of their empire, the Sorensians were most likely looking at a way to keep the rest of the galaxy destabilized. Grenzo logical conclusion would be their covert means of supplying the galaxies worst and most easily manipulated enemies, the pirates. Even though the Imperium’s operations had been relatively confined to boarder security, the recent incursions into the Chaos more than likely ruffled some feathers. This was probably all the justification needed to begin to probing operations to keep the Imperium off balance until the Sorensians could gather themselves and maintain their buffer zone between the emerging powers.

This was a smart plan and it might work too. However it was up to him and the other SMS units to make sure that that didn’t happen. Failure of the Lord Marshall’s plans would most likely tear the Imperium apart. Which was probably the plan all along. Grenzo would not let this happen. Or so he hoped….

Imperium High Command has just announced that Legacy Base is now fully operational. Legacy Base construction started in 2254 when Sky Marshall Blair, son of the Lord Marshall Blair, successfully petitioned the High Command for funding to begin construction of the station. The issue of further funding was in doubt until late 2254 when the rash of pirate attacks from the unknown regions convinced the budgetary committee to increase funding.

So in early 2255 the funds to begin constructing two new battle stations and deploy at least 8 Vanguard Carriers to act as system monitors in the area were approved. These system defense assets will be joined by at least 2 other task forces from the Imperium’s Nvay. The construction of Legacy Base and its supporting assets are Imperium’s first real steps into the unknown. Little is still known about the true history of this sector. As far as historical records can tell, the Xinjab inhabited Sector 4923 hundreds of years ago. A great war devastated their people and they were forced to flee. The remnants ended up in the Malan Coalition and have made some what of a life for themselves.

The remaining inhabitants of Sector 4923 which is now being called the Saisei Sector, are said to be cybernetic copies of their ancestors. The military has been rather tight lipped about the details of the sector and their findings, but have released the following information to INN.

The searches within the Saisei sector have revealed two other planets within another system which are suitable for recolonization. One of these planets was apart of the Xinjab Empire before it was destroyed. The other planet appears to be unexplored and relatively intact, although further investigations are to come. Imperium Exploration Services has announced that they will begin to launch colonization missions to the systems deemed safe by Imperium High Command. Several missions have been pre-planned since the IES got word of the Saisei sectors recolonization viability. These missions are slated to begin by mid year. INN will stay on top of the developments and keep everyone informed of progress.

The Imperium High Command has announced that two new warship classes will join the Imperium Fleet. The first is the Longsword Class Frigate. The Longsword joins the Imperium’s long list of carriers carrying a squadron of Axe Class Gunboats. The Longsword is currently the smallest carrier unit in the fleet. It offers a fast, affordable way to mass produce strike carrier units. All other Imperium Carrier units are cruiser mass or greater. The Saber Class is by far the oldest design dating back to the Revolutionary War. Yet despite its age it is still a reliable design. Eight more Sabers are expected to enter the fleet in mid-2257, the first such increase in Saber production since the war.

By contrast, 20 Longswords are expected to enter fleet service by November of this year. Developing a cost effective alternative to the Saber was the primary goal in the design process. The Longswords are expected to bring in 50% more firepower and coverage than the Saber’s can in terms of cost. Other Longsword variants are planned for future production including an Omni-Fighter Carrier version and heavy assault variant carrying mobile armors. However the IHC believes that the more advanced fighter units will be reserved for future fleet carriers such as the Macross Class Battleship which would need the versatility offered by these advanced fighters. The Longsword looks to be relegated mostly to system defense duties to fill the gap in patrols as heavier fleet assets are deployed into the Chaos and aboard.

The Longsword isn’t the only new ship class to join the fleet. The Mace Class Support Corvette will also join the fleet as a support corvette. The Mace looks to serve as an uparmored corvette to fill the void for lack of heavy guns in the Imperium. With destroyers being put to the front and a shortage frigates, the corvette will become one of the main stables of convoy escorts. of The Mace offers affordability and mass production abilities as the Longsword. Fleet escorts like the Mace will become increasingly valuable as Imperium forces venture further and further away from their bases.

Other frigates are planned to be built in the future to be developed as the need arises. The IHC has decided to deploy more frigates based on the need to deploy the destroyers and light cruisers elsewhere. Future frigates are to be designed for more system defense work rather than offensive operations. However at current, the Longsword looks to supplement system defense forces as Broadswords and Whitestars continue to be pulled from system defense fleets to go out on the offensive with carrier battle groups. Either way, this new rash of shipbuilding looks to employ more Imperium citizens in both the docks and Imperium Fleet. Already service men are busy building 4 new squadrons of patrol ships as well as several patrol group leaders. These new ships will help secure Imperium space from pirates and other nefarious forces. INN will keep you apprised of future developments.

“Hello, I am Ulizi Rsi of INN. We are here today to showcase the launch of Frontier I, the first of several colonization fleets being sent to the Saisei sector. Frontier I is the vanguard of the IES’ plan to repopulate the former Xinjab worlds in the Saisei sector. Most of the worlds have been reduced to nothing more than radioactive hulks or debris fields. The IES has designated such locations as historical sites which they intend on offering tourism services to. They hope that many people will be willing to go and see the remains of the great Xinjab civilization that lived long before the Imperium discovered interstellar travel. The IES has composed a systems map for those interested in the journey.”

An image appears over the screen showing several planets which have been marked as ceremonial sites to the fallen race. However, two grey dots in two different systems pop up a few seconds later.

“Now if you notice these gray dots are the plants Lytton and Tharin. The first habitable planet is Lytton. Lytton was a Xinjab outpost in the Raca System. This planet was lightly populated according to the Xinjab database. It was the home to some 2 million colonists who made most of their income through mining. Scout teams have discovered that most of the colonies infrastructure was badly damaged but salvageable. Several terraforming missions have made the planet livable again, but it will be some years before the system is fully rebuilt.

The 2nd habitable planet is Tharin is located in the Xach System. Tharin rests along one of the main hyperspace lanes in the sector. To this end, Sanctuary Station has been built around this relay point. Data records indicate that close to 58% of the sectors traffic flowed through this system at any given time. Considering it was such a valuable system, it was left relatively intact during the war. The basis of Sanctuary station was built over the remains of a former trade station in the area.

Sanctuary Station stands as a symbol of the rebirth of the system. Already scout units from Task Force 1 are exploring the surrounding systems to see if there is a possibility of reigniting trade with other races in the area. Task Force 1 based out of Legacy Station above Xinjab Prime and will be providing the security for the new colonists during their long journey to the Saisei Sector. Currently Task Force 1 consists of the following units. Task Force 1 is joined by a private security firm hired by the IES to provide additional security and fleet support tenders. The INN will keep you informed of the developments regarding the voyages of Frontier I as they cross the stars towards their new home.”

Over the last year, the AFN has been host to numerous tales of courage and valor as the Imperium Fleet engaged pirates and mercenaries on the Sharu Government’s behalf. Close to a third of the fleets small craft have been pulled off their patrol routes to go serve in this war in another sector. There are many who believe that this operation in necessary to the long-term security of the Imperium as a whole. However while this operation does have its merits, it does have it’s cost. With most of the small escort craft out fighting pirates in another sector, the effects of the deployment have been seen here at home. System defense forces are stretched trying to cover the areas left unprotected by the Navy and it has left a serious gap in the homeworld defenses.

And this hasn’t gone unnoticed by the pirates operating in the fringes. While Nova Prime, main base to the Home Fleet and its heavy planetary defenses aren’t feeling the pinch, the frontier colonies are. Since most of the destroyed pulled from the line came from these non-essential sectors, they are more effected than others. In the Praxis and Narran systems alone, system defense forces have reported a 14% increase in pirate attacks. These two systems have suffered less than stellar growth over the last few years so the system defenses in these sectors haven’t grown much. The SDFs in the sector have come to rely greatly on the Navy for long range patrol duties. This has mostly fallen by the wayside with numerous deployments.

It is unknown what the High Command intends to do about this rise in piracy, but with the shipyards working overtime to produce ships for the war effort, and with the possibility of more ships being pulled off the line to go fight, the frontier colonies maybe left to fend for themselves for a while. The INN will continue to follow these stories as they develop and kept you informed of any new developments.

“Monitor off” said the Lord Marshall as he turned in his chair to face his High Command. He wasn’t very happy with the recent turn of events and wanted answers. “So what do we plan to do here people? What about those new ships you promised?”

SM Lorn of the SDF Command spoke up first, “Well Lord Marshall, the Longswords are just coming off the assembly line and need at least 3 months to perform their shake down cruises and combat training. They won’t be ready for new assignments until at least mid year. And even then, we aren’t sure that they will be able to fill the gaps of the destroyer squadrons that put onto the front….”

The LM grumbled. “All I’m hearing are problems. I want some solutions. You told me that the Mace and the Longswords would give me comparable combat performance at least in terms of area covered by the destroyer groups! Why are we having this problem?!”

Lorn gulped, “Well sir, it’s a numerical situation. I know you are aware that our trade revenues have been growing with the large number of new traders launching their own ships. At the same time the “Chaos Expansion” has grown to meet the new opportunities for plunder out there… go capitalism….hahaha…” Lorn gulped again as his attempt at a joke was greeted with a stone glare from the Lord Marshall who was very clearly not amused.

“Lord Marshall, I do have a solution in mind that will probably be better for all” commented Sky Captain Fillion. The SC was an aid to SM Lorn in the SDF/Fleet Liaison office. “Well sir… if you don’t mind me interrupting, I had this idea sometime last year, but SM Lorn rejected it. Since you are looking for solutions, I think its only right that I bring it up now….if I may of course….” Fillion stopped realizing that he had just seriously overstepped his bounds by interrupting a SM.

“Go ahead, I’m listening…”

“Well sir… the heavy gunboat platform is almost ideal for long range patrol missions. The SDF forces that have been issued them are reporting great success with their use. The Narran and Praxis SDF commands who are having the most difficulties aren’t privy to the same caliber of long range patrol craft due to budgetary constraints. Most of their forces consist of short range fighters who are tied to outposts or planet side colonies. They aren't fit for long range patrol duties int he blackness of space where most attacks take place.

Any fleet assets deployed to the sector are mostly the Vigilance Class Patrol Cutters which are woefully inadequate to do anything more than scare away careless raiding parties. They just don’t have the firepower to stand up to the pirate corvettes and frigates which are causing us most of the pain even when Rangers are on the scene."

Fillion touched the screen to bring up the specs of the Ranger Class Gunboat.

Name: Ranger ClassType: Heavy Gunboat

Offensive Specs:
Scattering Beam Cannons
Assault Railguns

Defensive Specs:
Pin-Point Barriers
Ablative Armor

Click to expand...

Now currently, the SDF forces use the Ranger Class Heavy Gunboat. The Ranger Class is designed around anti-fighter defenses because of its close in nature to the colonies. While it does have firepower to engage warships, it doesn’t excel at it. If we are going to battle pirate raiders, we are going to need a weapon that can reach out and touch the enemy. Since SDF units are regulated to their systems, Fleet will have to carry out the initiative on this one. To do this they are going to need a new weapon. I present the Templar Class Assault Gunboat.”

Name: Templar ClassType: Assault Gunboat

Offensive Specs:
Pulse Cannons
Antishipping Missiles

Defensive Specs:
Hypercore
Siege Shielding

Click to expand...

“Now the Templar Class can be built 4x faster than the Longsword Frigates because they can be built planetside instead of in the orbital shipyards. This also results in a much shorter testing period as Templar Classes can be flown straight out of the factory and into combat. While it costs slightly more than a frigate, the coverage area is much better than the Crusaders carried by the Longsword. The Crusaderis armed with Pulse Cannons, Beam cannons and pinpoint barriers which makes it perfect for fighter sweeps, but they still fail in the anti-ship category. A single Templar Class packs as much anti-ship firepower as 4 Crusader Classes especially since we have come out with the new CAPX missiles.

Plus the Templar is far more versatile because of its enhanced jump core and additional life support systems. This gives it a much greater combat radius and coverage than the Longsword which must act in a centralized location to support its gunboats with heavy firepower. Plus, since they operate under the Fleet designation, they have rights to pursue pirates into other systems and have much more liberal rules of engagement. Plus, since the Apollo’s now carry mobile armors, fleet doesn’t operate heavy gunboats in our formations despite the Ranger’s past performance.”

Fillion stopped to survey the room. It looked like he had commands attention, especially the Lord Marshall.

“Yes, but why don’t you just use mobile armors? They are cheaper and more advanced than heavy gunboats. It’s why we took them off the carriers. They are more versatile in combat because of their modular configurations” interrupted SM Glin trying to catch the SC offguard.

Fillion smiled, he was ready for that question, “Well sir, you are right; the mobile armors need to be able to respond to any threat. However, you have to remember that the Templars will be operating away from main bases and steady supply routes. Most outposts don’t have the technicians or supplies to constantly switch modules on our gunboats. Plus the mobile armors and supporting arms units which usually have heavier warships backing them up. They can afford to be more lightly armed for anti-fighter operations, or if the need arises, anti-ship ops or long range recon. In this case, the roles are reverses. The SDF units have other assets to perform these, “small ship” operations. What they need is escort ship level firepower. system monitors are few a far between on the frontier. The Templars are there to provide that firepower, nothing more, and nothing less.”

Fillion stopped again to look at the Lord Marsahll as he shook his head in approval. “Well SC Fillion, this is a damn good idea. How soon do you think that we can implement this?”

Fillion’s confidence dropped a little as he thought about what he was about to tell the Lord Marshall. “Well sir… the techs at proving ground have already completed a prototype. They refit an older Gladiator class we used to use on the Apollos. They did some testing on it at my request last year when I came up with the idea. I only did the testing to make sure it was a viable option. I wouldn’t have brought it up if I wasn’t confident that it would work sir. And all their testing shows that it is a vast improvement over the Gladiator. They say that they can be building the new Templar Classes in 3 months if you give the go ahead.”

“Well damn, you took the initiative and got something that works done. Inform them that I will be talking with you and the SDF groups to see what they would need. I will also need a new SDF Commander. Are you interested Fillion?”

Fillion’s mouth dropped as he turned to Lorn who looked equally shocked. He had just gotten a promotion from aid to SDF Group Commander in the span of 20 minutes. He was speechless.

“I’ll take that shocked look on your face as a yes. Lorn… I need people who bring me solutions to my problems. You failed to do that which means you failed at your job. You are dismissed. Sky Marshall Fillion. I want your report on my desk by the start of the year. Let this be an example to all of you! Do your jobs or I will find someone who will! UNDERSTOOD!?”

“SIR YES SIR!” was the response from the group. The Lord Marshall had a habit of firing people on the spot for failures such as this. It reminded everyone to stay on their toes and keep innovating for the good of the Imperium. It was an effective strategy that kept the High Command fresh with new blood and talent. Not many militaries had this sort of forward thinking nature but the Lord Marshall felt it was one of the Imperium’s greatest assets. An asset that he used often and to great effect.

Captain Hammel and his crew had just left their home guard base. They had been on patrol for about 4 hours without much incident. The new SAS squadrons had recently been deployed into outlying systems to provide additional security. Their training at the Starbase 94 had gone well and Hammel and his units had graduated top of their class. To that end they were assigned to the 1st SAS and deployed to Praxis where ace pilots were needed the most.

Hammel had been apart of the 28th Tactical Fighter Wing aboard the Destiny before being transferred to the new SAS units. They had gone from flying their rather cramped Crusader’s to these much more spacious Templar’s. Aside from the bigger space, the Templar’s also offer seating for a crew of 12 as opposed to the 6 in a Crusader. Not to mention it had been far more deadly. In training they were able to successfully disable a corvette using groups of 3. This simply hadn’t been possible with the smaller gunboats requiring 6 to 8 units and usually suffering losses in the process. However that was training and this is real life. Hammel could only hope that this performance would hold up under combat situations. It would only require a little time before Hammel found out.

As Hammel was enjoying many of the new perks of his vessel, his comms officer, Ensign Taca, gave him an urgent message. “Sir, we’re picking up a distress signal from the freighter Zumel. They’re under attack and requesting assistance”.

Hammel was hit with an adrenaline rush as the word came to him. He was itching to blast something. “Alright Helm, let’s go! All hands to battle stations!” The alarms went off and the ship went into combat mode with the various projector screens coming to life. Within a minute the ship was in hyperspace heading to the battlefront.

It only took a few minutes to arrive at the ambush location. The dual purpose hypercore of the Templar had two settings. It could be overcharged for a quicker short jump, or used in a less power intensive mode for longer range. This gave it a much faster response and linger time when compared to other patrol craft. Something that had served the Captain well in this encounter and would likely help others out in the future. The quick speed of an escort craft surprised the raiders whom were still attempting to disable to bulk freighter.

“FIRE!” shouted Hammel. Seconds later he felt the ship shutter as the heavy missiles left the launch tubes and began rocketing toward their target. It only took the missiles 5 seconds to cross the distance and slam into their targets. The PDAs on two of the pirate vessels had thwarted some of the missiles, but the third wasn’t so lucky. The heavy KKVs slammed into the raider gutting it instantly, leaving it a burning hulk in space.

The other two raiders broke as they entered pulse cannon range of the attacking SAS Gunboat. Instinctively Ensign Sato banked to follow the closets raider which appeared to be heading back to the Zume. As the ship banked in behind the raider, the gunners let lose another burst of pulse cannon fire. This time the pulse cannon shots landed home on the enemy ship. This caused the shields on the raider to give way and fail; while a second volley ripped through the pirate’s hull causing explosions that destroyed the ship.

The crew let out a small cheer as they celebrated their second kill of the day. However their celebrations were short lived. Seconds later they them too were struck by a volley of cannon fire. The ship rocked as the pirate rounds thundered home.
“Damage report! Helm evasive pattern alpha 3!” shouted Hammel frantically trying to asses the situation.

“Sir, shields holding at 80%! No major damage to report” reported Uysia at tactical.

Hammel shook his head. This advanced shielding was working wonders for them. It was rare that a ship could standup to class 2 firepower for very long.

Meanwhile on the helm, Sato pulled off a 180 degree reversal and was now flying backwards pointing directly at the enemy raider. The crew was in amazement as that was generally a move done by fighter jocks.

“Impressive flying helm! Gunners can you match that?” questioned Hammel, wishing to put his crew to the test.

The gunners responded in kind, letting lose another torrent of fire toward the raider. It’s shields too flared and failed under the assault. The pirate broke away before behind destroyed by the cannons. However by the time he had veered away, the missile team reported that the KKVs were rearmed.

Ensign Sato swung the heavy bird around and Uysia achieved missile lock. With a quick squeeze of the trigger, several more KKVs launched forth and slammed into the pirate vessel turning it into space dust.

“Sir, scopes look clean!” reported Uysia as the rest of the crew cheered their successful first mission.

“Very good! Very good indeed.”

“Sir, getting a message from the Zume”

“Put it through”

“This is Captain Simmin of the Zume I thank you and your crew for your help. We will buy you all a round when we get to the Home Guard base in this sector.”

Hammel smiled, “I’ll hold you to that Captain. We shall escort you the rest of the way to make sure that you get back.”

“Much appreciated” came the reply.

“Alright people we aren’t out of the woods yet. Get back to your stations and lets get these people home” shouted Hammel as he attempted to refocus his crew on their jobs. While he was happy that they were enthusiastic about their success, he knew that danger still lurked about every corner of the darkness that was space.

Under the command of Sky Marshall Johnation Blair, the IES expedition has seen much success in its first year in the sector. After a rather uneventful trip, minus a couple of pirate raids, the IES Journey and her sister ships IES Frontier and IES Pathfinder arrived at Legacy Station. The IESJourney’s primary mission was to bring support personal for operations on Xinjab Prime. The planet had slowly been terraformed since the arrival of Task Force 1 two years ago. The planet was now deemed habital and the crew set out to do their work.

With Legacy Station looming overhead, the colonist found the majority of their living needs taken care of while they got their main settlement up. Over the last few months, the colonists have rebuilt a small section of a Xinjab city not far from Legacy Base. However the majority of the population on Xinjab Prime either lives on board Legacy Station, or underground in Legacy Base where the radiation isn’t as bad.

The IES Frontier and Pathfinder had missions on Tharin and Lytton. The Frontier’s mission was to reoccupy a major hyperspace trading lane. It was through this movement, that the expedition came into contact with the Inxil. The Inxil hail from 4922 and are a new space faring race. The Sky Marshall is currently in discussions with High Command on just how to handle this first contact situation considering the technology gap between our two peoples. However, it is certain that relations will slowly grow over time as trust is built.

The Pathfinder’s mission was probably the most important and interesting of the expedition. The Pathfinder main job was to relocate a team of research scientist to the Xinjab terraforming facility within the system. There they were able to continue their work on Project Phoenix. The goal for the project is to fulfill the Sky Marshall’s promise to bring life back to the Xinjab sectors. Creation of new systems will most likely completely transform life within the Imperium and most certainly open up new opportunities. Due to the dangerous nature of the project, it was deemed suitable to relocate the facilities to the outer reaches of the Imperium. The Xinjab were semi-weary of this move but have been convinced otherwise. In this case, the benefits outweigh the risks.

Stay with INN for additional colonization reports about first contact with the Inxil and research efforts in the Saisei sector.

Despite the war in the Rafa sector, Novan technology companies still continue to see rapid investment in the tech sector. Funding for researching new technologies has continued to grow over the last 3 years. Spending has gone from about 30-32% of the GDP to about 40%. The investment in new technologies, specifically those in the area of VI banking have see Novan stock prices rise on the intergalactic markets.

The most notable investments have come in the fields of terraforming and intergalactic communications. As reported earlier, researchers in the Saisei sector have been working on a new terraforming device known as the Phoenix Project. The Phoenix Project looks to reshape the very fabrics of the universe by giving Novan’s the ability to rapidly… almost instantaneously transform planets from barren rocks to habitiable worlds in less than seven days. One terran observatory referred to it as, “playing god” because in one of their major religions their creator created the universe in seven days.

Naturally there has been some small protest against the concept of playing god but many Novans, specifically the Ashqa are very excited about this scientific breakthrough. The Phoenix is expected to fly early next year once the final tests are done. Sky Marshall Blair, chief supporter of this plan had this to say.

“6 years ago, I made a promise to our new Xinjab friends that we would bring life back to their sector in exchange for their loyalty and support. So far, they have been more than willing to keep up their end of the bargin. Now it is our turn to make good on our end. Soon the Phoneix shall soar and a new, more powerful Xinjab nation shall rise from the ashes!”

Imperium companies are also rather excited about the possibility of an increased FTL communications. Companies will now be able to share much larger data packets at increased light speeds. Additional security protocols are already in the works to allow for more secure information travel. Their will also be an increased need for relay upgrades which look to bring more jobs to Imperium construction and tech companies. While quite a hefty investment now, the benefits will pay off in the end.

The most important benefit of the new communications grid will be quicker response time for Imperium patrols. The new system upgrades will increase sensor net function by close to 50%. This will make it harder for pirates to hide in the darkness of space. The military applications of said technology are rather impressive and high command is eager to start research next year after the Phoenix Project is complete. INN will keep you appraised of new developments in this project as they develop.

Less than a year ago, INN reported a marked rise in piracy. This was due to the large deployment of Novan escort vessels to fight the VT forces in the Rafa Sector. In High Command's haste to deploy units to fight the ever escalating war, they had left Novan territories mostly undefended. The progress that had been made in recent years had been erased in a matter of months because of lack enforcement.

The role of the SDF has been quietly expanding over the last few months and the trend is expected to continue. The SDF originally started as the simple compilation of the system defense forces operated by the system governments. However under recent directives of SM Fillion, SDF Command is growing to be a more solid integration of military patrol forces, and civilian sector governments. To this end, roughly 30% of the ships used by SDF Command are operated by the Imperium's Naval Force. These new ships have given the SDF a more offensive capability to go and hunt down pirates before they can harass supply lines. Destruction of pirate bases and outpost has been up 55% since the introdction of the Longsword Class Frigate and []Templar Class Gunboats[/i]. The introduction of the new Templar Class Gunboat and a number of new corvettes has greatly increased patrol functions of the fleet. This has completely changed the equation in dealing with pirates and just how successful operations have been. The recently promoted Sky Marshall Nathan Fillion of SDF Command has managed to completely revamp SDF Command in such a short time. This is a huge achievement which will most likely grant him a certain amount of job security for the foreseeable future.

The increase in number Novan escorts has increased the offensive capabilities of the SDF, but it is only one of the two major components related to the success of recent SDF operations. The second component is the greater ability of merchants to fight off pirate attacks. The SM has also been involved in increasing the number of weapons permits allowed to merchant marines by about 45% over the last year. The increased weaponry of most merchant vessels has become an every growing deterrent to attacks. While not enough to pose a series threat to any military vessel, the converted pirate vessels are now coming up against more well armed civilian vessels. Convoys now pack much more firepower than they used to.

Some have stated that this may lead to pirates upgrading their own firepower to be able to overwhelm the defense of escorts and pose a serious threat to Novan military vessels. However this is believed to be unlikely as more pirates strive to take ships intact and getting into military scale space battles isn't going to make them a lot of loot. It simply isn't worth the risk in most cases. This has caused most pirates to move onto other, less protected areas.

A minor downside of the relaxed procedures is a small number of bandits have been reported using them to upgrade their own equipment. Some point out that this possibility was possible before through black market operations. However the recent relaxation of the armament codes has made it slightly easier to get a hold of quality equipment. Several skirmishes between shipping companies have caught the attention of local law enforcement agencies. The cooperation between the military and the civilian law enforcement agencies have produced acceptable results. Any companies caught violating the self-defense articles have been subject to penalties including confiscation of all assets.More arrests have been made in the last year since the SM revised the protocols and rules of engagement than in the last 3 years under SM Lorn.

These success and the need for more frontline warship production has put SDF commands request for new vessels on hold at least for the next year. While a new squadron of patrol vessels and a few corvettes are in the works, the majority of the shipyard capacity will be used for construction of new military vessels. However all is not lost. Various system governments are going to follow the SM's recommendation and upgrade their system defense forces. SDF command is expecting that the System Commands will be adopting the new Templar Class Gunboat to replace the aging Ranger Classes over the next couple years.

Plus SDF command has been contacted by the Sharu government requesting their assistance with their own system defense force creation. SM Fillion's lessons learned working with the system governments in the Imperium are surely to serve him well with the Sharu. However, the Sharu do lack the same naval forces that are present in Imperium territories. It is expected that patrols will still be conducted primarily by Imperium Naval Forces of the 4th Fleet until such time that the Sharu can muster their own naval forces.

While Imperium forces are waging war in the Rafa sector, the Lord Marshall's son, Sky Marshall Blair continues to forge new alliances in the Saisei sector. The Inixil, a recent addition to the leagues star faring races has recently made contact with the expeditionary units in the Saisei Sector. Over the last year, the Inixil have slowly been building a relationship with the Novan Expeditionary Force.

The NEF under the command of SM Blair have demonstrated far better diplomatic skills than typical of Novan dignitaries. Reports have stated that the first contact situation has been relatively uneventful. The free exchange of information between the two races has been rather successful. This has been partially responsible to the similarities shared between the Ashqa and the Inixil.

Sky Captain Byrme, the new head of the scientific teams has reported that he sees a lot of similarities between the Inixil's thirst for scientific advancement and the Ashqa's. The Sky Captain has also noted the Inixil's willingness to learn and upgrade their own technologies, instead of just buy them from the Novans.

The Sky Marshall himself has stated an eagerness to work with the new arrivals stating, "This is the whole reason I wanted to assignment. Working with a developing nation to expand their capabilities is something far more satisfying than engaging in battle."

The recent diplomatic success of the SM coupled with the work the engineers and colonist have done restoring the Xinjab civilization is truly a remarkable feat. With all the talk of war victories, the great feats of science are often forgotten. The Ashqa and most Novans in civilian service are actually more interested in these sorts of developments than the Remens who specialize in war reporting.

In response to this INN will be conducting a number of special reports starting next year to report the progress of the Phoenix Project. This is the culmination of several years of work and extensive research in terraforming and related sciences. INN will be on hand to report this and the other developments in the colonization efforts in the Saisei Sector.